LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


Class 


Iftttoergibe 


1.  ANDREW  JACKSON,  by  W.  G.  BROWN. 

2.  JAMES   B.    EADS,  by  Louis  How. 

3.  BENJAMIN     FRANKLIN,  by    PAUL    E. 

MORE. 

4.  PETER   COOPER,  by  R.  W.  RAYMOND. 

5.  THOMAS  JEFFERSON,  by  H.  C.  MKR- 

WIN. 

6.  WILLIAM   PENN,  by  GEORGE  HODGBS. 

7.  GENERAL  GRANT,  by  WALTER  ALLEN. 

8.  LEWIS  AND   CLARK,  by  WILLIAM  R. 

LIGHTON. 

9.  JOHNMARSHALL.byjAMEsB.THAYER. 

10.  ALEXANDER   HAMILTON,  by  CHAS.  A. 

CONANT. 

11.  WASHINGTON  IRVING, by  H.W.BoYN- 

TON. 

12.  PAUL  JONES,  by  HUTCHINS  HAPGOOD. 

13.  STEPHEN     A.     DOUGLAS,    by  W.   G. 

BROWN. 

14.  SAMUEL   DE   CHAMPLAIN,  by  H.  D. 

SEDGWICK,  Jr. 

Each  about  140  pages,  i6mo,  with  photogravure 
portrait,  65  cents,  net ;  School  Edition,  each, 
50  cents,  net. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


fotorafoe  Biographical  Series 

NUMBER  3 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

BY 

PAUL  ELMER  MORE 


UNIV.  or 
CALIFORNIA 


tv     ...V:?:w 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 


BY 


PAUL  ELMEK  MORE 


BOSTON   AND    NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
fftiteitfibe  pre£0  Camferibge 


COPYRIGHT,   igOO,   BY   PAUL   E.   MORE 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  **<» 

I.  EARLY  DAYS  IN  BOSTON        ....  1 
II.  BEGINNINGS  IN    PHILADELPHIA  AND  FIRST 

VOYAGE  TO  ENGLAND     ....  22 
III.  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS.  —  THE  JUNTO       .        .  37 
IV. "  THE  SCIENTIST  AND  PUBLIC  CITIZEN  IN  PHIL 
ADELPHIA         52 

V.  FIRST  AND  SECOND  MISSIONS  TO  ENGLAND  .  85 

VI.  MEMBER  OF  CONGRESS  —  ENVOY  TO  FRANCE  109 


227629 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 


EAKLY  DAYS   IN   BOSTON 

WHEN  the  report  of  Franklin's  death 
reached  Paris,  he  received,  among  other 
marks  of  respect,  this  significant  honor  by 
one  of  the  revolutionary  clubs  :  in  the  cafe 
where  the  members  met,  his  bust  was  crowned 
with  oak-leaves,  and  on  the  pedestal  below 
was  engraved  the  single  word  VIR.  This 
simple  encomium,  calling  to  mind  Napoleon's 
This  is  a  man  after  meeting  Goethe,  sums 
up  better  than  a  volume  of  eulogy  what 
Franklin  was  in  his  own  day  and  what  his 
life  may  still  signify  to  us.  He  acted  at  one 
time  as  a  commander  of  troops,  yet  cannot 
be  called  a  soldier ;  he  was  a  great  states 
man,  yet  not  among  the  greatest ;  he  made 
famous  discoveries  in  science,  yet  was  scarcely 


2  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

a  professional  scientist ;  he  was  lauded  as  a 
philosopher,  yet  barely  outstepped  the  region 
of  common  sense ;  he  wrote  ever  as  a  moral 
ist,  yet  in  some  respects  lived  a  free  life ; 
he  is  one  of  the  few  great  American  authors, 
yet  never  published  a  book  ;  he  was  a  shrewd 
economist,  yet  left  at  his  death  only  a  mod 
erate  fortune  ;  he  accomplished  much  as  a 
philanthropist,  yet  never  sacrificed  his  own 
weal.'  Above  all  and  in  all  things  he  was  a 
man,  able  to  cope  with  every  chance  of  life 
and  wring  profit  out  of  it ;  he  had  perhaps 
the  alertest  mind  of  any  man  of  that  alert 
century.  In  his  shrewdness,  versatility,  self- 
reliance,  wit,  as  also  in  his  lack  of  the  deeper 
reverence  and  imagination,  he,  I  think,  more 
than  any  other  man  who  has  yet  lived,  repre 
sents  the  full  American  character.  And  so 
in  studying  his  life,  though  at  times  we  may 
wish  that  to  his  practical  intelligence  were 
added  the  fervid  insight  of  Jonathan  Ed 
wards,  who  was  his  only  intellectual  equal 
in  the  colonies,  or  the  serene  faith  of  an 
Emerson,  who  was  born  "  within  a  kite 
string's  distance  "  of  his  birthplace  in  Bos- 


EARLY   DAYS   IN   BOSTON  3 

ton,  yet  in  the  end  we  are  borne  away  by 
the  wonderful  openness  and  rectitude  of  his 
mind,  and  are  willing  to  grant  him  his  high 
representative  position. 

/  Franklin's  ancestors  were  of  the  sturdy 
-  -sort  that  have  made  the  strength  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race.  For  three  hundred  years 
at  least  his  family  had  lived  on  a  freehold  of 
thirty  acres  in  the  village  of  Ecton,  North 
amptonshire  ;  and  for  many  generations 
father  and  son  had  been  smiths.  Parton, 
in  his  capital  Life  of  Franklin,  has  observed 
that  Washington's  ancestors  lived  in  the 
same  county,  although  much  higher  in  the 
social  scale ;  and  it  may  well  have  been  that 
more  than  one  of  Franklin's  ancestors  "  tight 
ened  a  rivet  in  the  armor  or  replaced  a  shoe 
upon  the  horse  of  a  Washington,  or  doffed 
his  cap  to  a  Washington  riding  past  the  an 
cestral  forge."  During  these  long  years  the 
family  seems  to  have  gathered  strength  from 
the  soil,  as  families  are  wont  to  do.  Seeing 
how  the  Franklins,  when  the  fit  of  emigrat 
ing  seized  upon  them,  blossomed  out  mo 
mentarily,  and  then  dwindled  away,  we  are 


4  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

reminded  of  Poor   Richard's  wise  observe 
tion,  — 

"  I  never  saw  an  oft-removed  tree 
Nor  yet  an  oft-removed  family 
That  throve  so  well  as  those  that  settled  be." 

Abput  the  year  1685,  Josiah  Franklin, 
the  youngest  of  four  sons,  came  with  his 
wife  and  three  children  to  Boston.  He  had 
been  a  dyer  in  the  old  home,  but  now  in 
New  England,  finding  little  to  be  done  in 
this  line,  he  set  up  as  a  tallow-chandler  and 
soap-boiler,  and  prospered  in  a  small  way. 
By  his  first  wife  he  had  four  more  children, 
and  then  by  a  second  wife  ten  others,  —  a 
goodly  sheaf  of  seventeen,  among  whom  Ben 
jamin,  the  destined  philosopher,  was  the 
fifteenth. 

The  second  wife,  Benjamin's  mother,  was 
the  daughter  of  Peter  Folger,  one  of  the  set 
tlers  of  Nantucket,  —  "  a  godly  and  learned 
Englishman,"  who,  like  many  of  the  pious 
New  England  folk,  used  to  relieve  his  heart 
in  doggerel  rhymes.  In  his  "  Looking-Glass 
for  the  Times  "  he  appeals  boldly  for  liberty 
of  conscience  in  behalf  of  the  persecuted 


EARLY   DAYS  IN   BOSTON  -5 

Anabaptists  and  Quakers,  and  we  are  not 
surprised  that  Franklin  should  have  com 
mended  the  manly  freedom  of  these  crude 
verses.  Young  Benjamin  was  open  to  every 
influence  about  him,  and  something  of  the 
large  and  immovable  tolerance  of  his  nature 
may  have  been  caught  from  old  Peter  Fol- 
ger,  his  grandfather.  We  can  imagine  with 
what  relish  that  sturdy  Protestant,  if  he  had 
lived  so  long,  would  have  received  Benja 
min's  famous  "  Parable  against  Persecution," 
which  the  author  used  to  pretend  to  read  as 
the  last  chapter  of  Genesis,  to  the  great 
mystification  of  his  audience,  — "  And  it 
came  to  pass  after  these  things  that  Abra 
ham  sat  in  the  door  of  his  tent,"  etc.  Try 
the  trick  to-day,  and  you  will  find  most  of 
your  hearers  equally  mystified,  so  perfectly 
has  Franklin  imitated  the  tone  of  Old  Testa 
ment  language. 

But  we  forget  that  our  hero,  like  Tristram 
Shandy,  is  still  in  the  limbo  of  non-existence. 
Benjamin  Franklin  was  born  in  Boston,  Jan 
uary  6  (old  style),  1706.  At  that  time  the 
family  home  was  in  Milk  Street,  opposite 


6  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

the  Old  South  Church,  to  which  sacred  edi 
fice  the  child  was  taken  the  day  of  his  birth, 
tradition  asserting  that  his  own  mother  car 
ried  him  thither  through  the  snow.  Shortly 
afterwards  the  family  moved  to  a  wooden 
house  on  the  corner  of  Hanover  and  Union 
streets. 

Naturally  in  so  large  a  family,  where  the 
means  of   support  were   so  slender,  young 
Benjamin  had  to  get  most  of  his  education 
^  outside   of   the   schoolroom,  and  something 
i  of  this  practical  unscholastic  training  clung 
vto  his  mind  always.     Perhaps  this  was  just 
as  well  in  that  age  and  place,  where  theo 
logy  and  education  were  synonymous  terms. 
Certainly  his  consequent  lack  of  deep  root 
in  the  past  and  his  impressionability,  though 
limitations  to  his  genius,  make  him  the  more 
typical  of  American  intelligence.     At  the 
age  of  eight  he  was  sent  to  the  grammar 
school,  where  he  remained  less  than  a  year, 
and  then  passed  under  the  charge  of  Mr. 
George  Brownell,  a  teacher  of  the  three  R's. 
/Benjamin  had  learned  to  read  so  young  that 
£-  yhe  himself  could  not  remember  being  unable 


EARLY   DAYS   IN   BOSTON  7 

to  read,  and  at  school  he  did  notably  well. 
It  is  curious,  however,  that  he  found  diffi 
culty  with  his  arithmetic,  and  was  never  a 
mathematician,  though  later  in  life  he  be 
came  skillful  in  dealing  with  figures.  No 
error  could  be  greater  than  Carlyle's  state 
ment  that  ability  in  mathematics  is  a  test  of 
intelligence.  Goethe,  scientist  as  well  as 
poet,  could  never  learn  algebra  ;  and  Fara 
day,  the  creator  of  electrical  science,  knew 
no  mathematics  at  all. 

When  ten  years  old  the  lad  was  taken  • 
from  school  and  set  to  work  under  his  f ather.J 
But  his  education  was  by  no  means  ended. 
There  is  a  temptation  to  dwell  on  these 
early  formative  years  because  he  himself  was 
so  fond  of  deducing  lessons  from  the  little 
occurrences  of  his  boyhood  ;  nor  do  I  know 
any  life  that  shows  a  more  consistent  develop 
ment  from  beginning  to  end.  There  is,  too, 
a  peculiar  charm  in  hearing  the  world-famous 
philosopher  discourse  on  these  petty  happen 
ings  of  childhood  and  draw  from  them  his 
wise  experience  of  life.  So,  for  instance,  at 
sixty-six  years  of  age  he  writes  to  a  friend 


8  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

in  Paris  the  story  of  "  The  Whistle."  One 
day  when  he  was  seven  years  old  his  pocket 
was  filled  with  coppers,  and  he  immediately 
started  for  the  shop  to  buy  toys.  On  the 
way  he  met  a  boy  with  a  whistle,  and  was  so 
charmed  with  the  sound  of  it  that  he  gave 
all  his  money  for  one.  Of  course  his  kind 
brothers  and  sisters  laughed  at  him  for  his 
extravagant  bargain,  and  his  chagrin  was  so 
great  that  he  adopted  as  one  of  his  maxims 
of  life,  "  Don't  give  too  much  for  the  whis 
tle."  As  he  grew  up,  came  into  the  world, 
and  observed  the  actions  of  men,  he  thought 
he  met  with  many,  very  many,  who  gave 
too  much  for  the  whistle,  —  men  sacrificing 
time  and  liberty  and  virtue  for  court  favor  ; 
misers,  giving  up  comfort  and  esteem  and 
the  joy  of  doing  good  for  wealth ;  others 
sacrificing  every  laudable  improvement  of  the 
mind  and  fortune  and  health  to  mere  cor 
poral  sensations,  and  all  the  other  follies  of 
exorbitant  desire. 

Another  experience,  this  time  a  more  pain 
ful  lesson  in  honesty,  he  relates  in  his  Auto 
biography.  Having  one  day  stolen  some 


EARLY  DAYS   IN   BOSTON  9 

stones  from  an  unfinished  house  while  the 
builders  were  away,  he  and  his  comrades  built 
up  a  wharf  where  they  might  stand  and  fish 
for  minnows  in  the  mill-pond.  They  were 
discovered,  complained  of,  and  corrected  by 
their  fathers  ;  "  and  though  I  demonstrated 
the  utility  of  our  work,"  says  Franklin, 
"  mine  convinced  me  that  that  which  was 
not  honest  could  not  be  truly  useful." 

It  is  interesting,  too,  to  see  the  boy  show-  /, 
ing  the  same  experimental  aptitude  which/^ 
brought  scientific  renown  to  the  man.  Like 
all  American  boys  living  on  the  coast,  he 
was  strongly  attracted  to  the  water,  and 
early  learned  to  swim.  But  ordinary  swim 
ming  was  not  enough  for  Benjamin :  with 
some  skill  he  made  a  pair  of  wooden  paddles 
for  his  hands,  which  enabled  him  to  move 
through  the  water  very  rapidly,  although,  as 
he  says,  they  tired  his  wrists.  Another  time 
he  combined  the  two  joyful  pursuits  of  swim 
ming  and  kite-flying  in  such  a  manner  perhaps 
as  no  boy  before  him  had  ever  conceived. 
Lying  on  his  back,  he  held  in  his  hands  the 
stick  to  which  the  kite-string  was  attached, 


10  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

and  thus  "  was  drawn  along  the  surface  of 
the  water  in  a  very  agreeable  manner." 
Later  in  life  he  said  he  thought  it  not  im 
possible  to  cross  in  this  manner  from  Dover 
to  Calais.  "  But  the  packet-boat  is  still 
preferable,"  he  added.  We  shall  see  how 
he  managed  to  put  even  his  knowledge  of 
swimming  to  practical  use  ;  and  kite-flying, 
every  one  knows,  served  him  in  his  most 
notable  electrical  experiment.  Certainly,  if 
it  could  ever  be  said  of  any  one,  it  might 
be  said  of  him,  "  The  child  is  father  of  the 
man." 

But  swimming  and  boyish  play  formed  a 
small,  though  it  may  be  important,  part  of 
his  education.  He  was  from  childhood  up 
"  passionately  fond  of  reading,"  and  he  was 
moreover  a  wise  reader,  which  is  still  bet 
ter.  Books  were  not  so  easy  to  get  in  those 
days  ;  and  the  good  libraries  of  the  country 
were  composed  chiefly  of  great  theological 
volumes  in  folio  on  the  shelves  of  the  clergy 
men's  studies.  But  in  one  way  and  another 
Franklin  contrived  to  lay  hands  on  the  food 
he  most  needed.  All  the  money  he  could 


EARLY  DAYS   IN   BOSTON  11 

save  he  devoted  to  buying  books,  and  he 
even  had  recourse  to  unusual  methods  of 
saving  for  this  purpose.     When  sixteen  he  "") 
chanced  to  read  a   treatise  commending  a    V 
vegetable  diet,  and  forthwith  he  put  himself    \ 
under  this  regimen,  finding  he  could  thus  '} 
set  aside  half  his  board  money  to  increase' 
his  library.     He  also  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  booksellers'  apprentices  from  whom  he 
could  borrow  books ;  and  often  he  would  read 
late  into  the  night  so  as  to  return  the  pur 
loined  volume  early  the  next  morning. 

The  first  book  he  owned  was  the  "Pil 
grim's  Progress,"  which  remained  a  favorite 
with  him  through  life  and  even  served  to  a 
certain  extent  as  a  model  for  his  own  work. 
This  book  he  sold  to  buy  Burton's  "His 
torical  Collections  "  in  forty  volumes.  His 
father's  library  was  mainly  theological,  and 
the  young  lad  was  courageous  enough  to 
browse  even  in  this  dry  pasture,  but  to  his 
little  profit  as  he  thought.  There  was,  how 
ever,  a  book  on  his  father's  shelves  which 
was  admirably  suited  to  train  one  destined 
himself  to  play  a  large  part  in  a  great  drama 


12  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

of  history.  Where  could  patriotism  and 
fortitude  of  character  better  be  learnt  than 
in  Plutarch  ?  and  Plutarch  he  read  "  abun 
dantly"  and  thought  his  "time  spent  to 
great  advantage."  That  was  in  the  good 
days  before  children's  books  and  boys'  books 
were  printed.  In  place  of  —  whom  shall  we 
say,  Henty  or  Abbott  or  another  ?  —  boys,  if 
they  read  at  all,  read  Plutarch  and  the 
"  Spectator."  They  came  to  the  intellectual 
tasks  of  manhood  with  their  minds  braced 
by  manly  reading  and  not  deboshed  by  silly 
or  at  best  juvenile  literature.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  no  book  written  primarily  for  a 
boy  is  a  good  book  for  a  boy  to  read.  Apart 
from  lessons  in  generous  living,  Franklin 
may  have  had  his  natural  tendency  to  moral 
ize  strengthened  by  this  study  of  Plutarch. 
It  is  indeed  notable  that  in  one  respect  eigh 
teenth-century  literature  has  marked  affinity 
with  the  Greek.  The  writers  of  that  age, 
and  among  them  Franklin,  were  like  the 
Greeks  distinctly  ethical.  In  telling  a  story 
or  recording  a  life,  their  interest  was  in  the 
moral  to  be  drawn,  rather  than  in  the  pas 
sions  involved. 


EARLY   DAYS   IN   BOSTON  13 

Another  book  which  had  a  special  in 
fluence  on  his  style  may  be  mentioned.  An 
odd  volume  of  the  "  Spectator  "  coming  into 
his  hands,  he  read  the  essays  over  and  over 
and  took  them  deliberately  as  a  model  in 
language.  This  was  before  the  date  of  John 
son's  well-known  dictum  :  "  Whoever  wishes 
to  attain  an  English  style,  familiar  but  not 
coarse,  and  elegant  but  not  ostentatious, 
must  give  his  days  and  nights  to  the  volumes 
of  Addison."  His  method  of  work  was 
"  to  make  short  hints  of  the  sentiments  in 
each  sentence,"  lay  these  by  for  a  few  days, 
and  then  having  reconstructed  the  essay 
from  his  notes  to  compare  his  version  with  the 
original.  Sometimes  he  jumbled  the  collec 
tion  of  hints  into  confusion  and  thus  made 
a  study  of  construction  as  well  as  of  style ; 
or  again  he  turned  an  essay  into  verse  and 
after  a  while  converted  it  back  into  prose. 
And  this  we  believe  to  be  the  true  method 
of  acquiring  a  good  style,  more  efficacious 
than  any  English  course  in  Harvard  Col 
lege. 

At  sixteen  he  was  reading  Locke  "  On  \ 


14  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Human  Understanding,"  -  very  strong 
meat  for  a  boy  —  and  the  Port  Royal  "  Art 
of  Thinking."  From  Xenophon's  "  Memo 
rable  Things  of  Socrates  "  he  acquired  a  les 
son  which  he  never  forgot  and  which  he 
always  esteemed  of  importance  in  his  educa 
tion.  This  was  the  skillful  assumption  of 
ignorance  or  uncertainty  in  dispute,  the  so- 
called  "  irony  "  of  Socrates.  At  first  he  em 
ployed  this  ironical  method  to  trap  his 
opponents  into  making  unwary  statements 
that  led  to  their  confusion  ;  and  in  this  way 
he  grew  expert  in  obtaining  victories  that, 
as  he  said,  neither  he  nor  his  cause  deserved. 
Accordingly  he  afterwards  gave  up  this  form 
of  sophistry  and  only  retained  the  habit  of 
expressing  himself  in  terms  of  modest  diffi 
dence,  always  saying:  He  conceived  or  im 
agined  such  a  thing  to  be  so,  and  never 
using  the  words  certainly r,  undoubtedly r,  and 
the  like. 

Books,  however,  occupied  but  a  small  part 
of  his  life  at  this  time.  After  leaving  school 
he  was  first  made  to  assist  his  father  in  the 
tallow-chandler  business ;  but  his  distaste  for 


EARLY   DAYS   IN   BOSTON  15 

this  trade  was  so  great  that  his  father,  fear 
ing  the  boy  would  run  away  to  sea,  began  to 
look  about  for  other  employment  for  him. 
He  took  the  lad  to  see  "  joiners,  brick-layers, 
turners,  braziers,  etc.,  at  their  work,"  in  order 
to  discover  where  the  boy's  inclination  lay. 
And  this  event  of  his  boyhood  he  as  an  old 
man  remembered,  saying,  that  it  had  ever 
since  been  a  pleasure  to  him  to  see  good  work 
men  handle  their  tools,  and  adding  that  it  was 
useful  to  him  in  his  business  and  science  to 
have  learned  so  much  in  the  way  of  handi 
craft.  At  length  Benjamin's  love  of  books 
determined  his  occupation,  and  like  many 
another  famous  author  he  was  set  to  the 
printing-press.  In  1717  his  brother  James 
had  come  back  from  England  with  a  press 
and  letters,  and  at  the  age  of  twelve  Benja 
min  was  bound  to  his  brother  as  an  appren 
tice. 

James  soon  discovered  Benjamin's  clever 
ness  with  the  pen  and  induced  him  to  com 
pose  two  ballads,  "The  Light-House  Tra 
gedy,"  being  the  story  of  a  recent  shipwreck, 
and  "  Blackboard,"  a  sailor's  song  on  the 


16  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

capture  of  that  notorious  pirate.  These 
ballads,  which  the  author  frankly,  and  no 
doubt  truthfully,  describes  as  "wretched 
stuff,"  were  printed  and  hawked  about  the 
streets  by  the  boy.  "  The  Light-House  Tra 
gedy"  at  least  sold  prodigiously,  and  the 
boy's  vanity  was  correspondingly  flattered ; 
but  the  father  stepped  in  and  discouraged 
such  work,  warning  Benjamin  that  "  verse- 
makers  were  generally  beggars."  So,  per 
haps,  we  were  spared  a  mediocre  poet  and 
given  a  first-rate  prose  writer,  for  the  stuff 
of  poetry  was  not  in  Franklin's  sober  brain. 
At  this  time  the  good  people  of  Massachu* 
setts  were  dependent  for  the  news  of  the 
world  on  a  single  paper,  the  "  Boston  News- 
Letter,"  afterwards  called  the  "Gazette" 
(and  indeed  there  was  no  other  paper  in  the 
whole  country),  published,  as  was  commonly 
the  case  in  those  days,  by  the  postmaster  of 
the  town.  But  in  1721  James  Franklin, 
much  against  the  advice  of  his  friends, 
started  a  rival  paper,  the  "  New  England 
Courant,"  which  the  young  apprentice  had 
to  carry  about  to  subscribers  after  helping  it 


EARLY   DAYS   IN   BOSTON  17 

through  the  press.  Benjamin,  however,  soon 
played  a  more  important  part  than  printer's 
devil.  Several  ingenious  men  were  in  the 
habit  of  writing  little  Addisonian  essays  for 
the  paper,  and  Benjamin,  hearing  their  con 
versation,  was  fired  to  try  his  own  skill. 
"  But  being  still  a  boy,"  —  so  he  tells  the 
story  himself,  — "  and  suspecting  that  my 
brother  would  object  to  printing  anything 
of  mine  in  his  paper  if  he  knew  it  to  be 
mine,  I  contrived  to  disguise  my  hand,  and 
writing  an  anonymous  paper,  I  put  it  at 
night  under  the  door  of  the  printing-house. 
It  was  found  in  the  morning  and  communi 
cated  to  his  writing  friends  when  they  called 
in  as  usual.  They  read  it,  commented  on  it 
in  my  hearing,  and  I  had  the  exquisite  plea 
sure  of  finding  it  met  with  their  approbation, 
and  that  in  their  different  guesses  at  the 
author  none  were  named  but  men  of  some 
character  among  us  for  learning  and  inge 
nuity."  Naturally  the  lad  was  flattered  by 
the  success  of  his  ruse  ;  and  he  continued  to 
send  in  his  anonymous  essays  for  more  than 
a  year.  They  have  been  pretty  conclusively 


18  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

identified  as  the  series  of  articles  signed 
"  Silence  Dogood,"  and  are  a  clever  enough 
imitation  of  the  "  Spectator's  "  style  of  alle 
gory  and  humorous  satire,  such  as  Franklin 
was  fond  of  using  all  his  life.  The  signature, 
too,  Silence  Dogood,  was  characteristic  of 
the  man  who  turned  all  religion  into  a  code 
of  morality,  and  was  famous  for  his  power 
of  keeping  a  secret.  Like  the  ancient  poet 
Simonides,  he  knew  the  truth  of  the  saying, 
Silence  hath  a  safe  reward. 

Those  days  were  not  easy  times  for  print 
ers,  nor  was  the  freedom  of  the  press  any 
more  respected  than  liberty  of  conscience. 
Trouble  very  soon  arose  between  the  new 
paper  and  the  authorities  chiefly  on  account 
of  the  "  Cour ant's  "  free  handling  of  the 
church.  Already  the  free-thinking  party 
which  afterwards  formed  into  the  Unitarian 
cjiurch  was  showing  its  head,  and  the  writers 
for  the  "  Courant "  were  among  the  most 
outspoken.  The  climax  was  reached  when 
one  day  the  paper  appeared  with  a  diatribe 
containing  such  words  as  these  :  "  For  my 
own  part,  when  I  find  a  man  full  of  religious 


EARLY   DAYS   IN   BOSTON  19 

cant  and  palaver,  I  presently  suspect  him  to 
be  a  knave,"  —  a  sentiment  which  the  reli 
gious  authorities  very  properly  took  as  an 
insult  to  themselves.  James  was  arrested 
and  imprisoned  for  a  month,  and  on  his  re 
lease  was  forbidden  to  print  the  "  Courant." 
To  escape  this  difficulty  the  old  indenture  of 
Benjamin  was  canceled  and  the  paper  was 
printed  in  his  name  ;  at  the  same  time,  how 
ever,  a  new  indenture  was  secretly  made  so 
that  James  might  still,  if  he  desired,  claim 
his  legal  rights  in  the  apprentice.  It  was  a 
"  flimsy  scheme,"  and  held  but  a  little  while. 
Bickerings  had  been  constant  between  the 
two  brothers,  and  Benjamin  was  especially 
resentful  for  the  blows  his  master's  passion 
too  often  urged  him  to  bestow. 

"  My  mind  now  is  set, 
My  heart's  thought,  on  wide  waters,"  — 

said  the  youth  in  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  poem, 
and  this  same  sea-longing  was  bred  in  the 
bones  of  our  Boston  apprentice.  Now  at 
length  the  boy  would  break  away ;  at  least 
he  would  voyage  to  another  home,  though  he 
might  give  up  the  notion  of  becoming  a 


20  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

sailor.  He  intimates,  moreover,  that  the 
narrow  bigotry  of  New  England  in  religion 
was  distasteful  to  him  —  as  we  may  well  be 
lieve  it  was.  Yet  he  always  retained  an 
affectionate  memory  of  the  place  of  his  birth ; 
and  only  two  years  before  his  death  he  wrote 
pleasantly  regarding  the  citizens  of  that 
town,  "  for  besides  their  general  good  sense, 
which  I  value,  the  Boston  manner,  turn  of 
phrase,  and  even  tone  of  voice  and  accent  in 
pronunciation,  all  please  and  seem  to  refresh 
and  revive  me."  The  newspapers  of  those 
days  were  full  of  advertisements  for  runaway 
apprentices,  and  Benjamin  was  one  to  get 
his  freedom  in  the  same  way.  He  sold  his 
books  for  a  little  cash,  took  secret  passage 
in  a  sloop  for  New  York,  and  in  three  days 
(some  time  in  October,  1723)  found  himself 
in  that  strange  city  "  without  the  least  re 
commendation  or  knowledge  of  anybody  in 
the  place."  The  voyage  had  been  unevent 
ful  save  for  an  incident  which  happened 
while  they  were  becalmed  off  Block  Island. 
The  crew  here  employed  themselves  in  catch 
ing  cod,  and  to  Franklin,  at  this  time  a 


EARLY  DAYS   IN  BOSTON  21 

devout  vegetarian,  the  taking  of  every  fish 
seemed  a  kind  of  unprovoked  murder,  since 
none  of  them  had  done  or  could  do  their 
catchers  any  injury.  But  he  had  been  for 
merly  a  great  lover  of  fish,  and  the  smell 
of  the  frying-pan  was  most  tempting.  He 
balanced  some  time  between  principle  and 
inclination,  till,  recollecting  that  when  the 
fish  were  opened  he  had  seen  smaller  fish 
taken  out  of  their  stomachs,  he  bethought 
himself :  "  If  you  eat  one  another  I  don't 
see  why  we  may  not  eat  you ;  "  so  he  dined 
upon  cod  very  heartily,  and  continued  through 
life,  except  at  rare  intervals,  to  eat  as  other 
people.  "  So  convenient  a  thing  it  is,"  he 
adds,  "  to  be  a  reasonable  creature,  since  it 
enables  one  to  find  or  make  a  reason  for 
everything  one  has  a  mind  to  do." 


n 


BEGINNINGS   IN   PHILADELPHIA    AND    FIKST 
VOYAGE    TO    ENGLAND 

THE  only  printer  then  in  New  York  was 
old  William  Bradford,  formerly  of  Phila 
delphia,  whose  monument  may  still  be  seen 
in  Trinity  Churchyard.  To  Mr.  William 
Bradford  accordingly  young  Franklin  ap 
plied  for  work ;  but  there  was  little  printing 
done  in  the  town  and  Bradford  had  no  need 
of  another  hand  at  the  press.  He  told 
Franklin,  however,  that  his  son  at  Philadel 
phia  had  lately  lost  his  principal  assistant  by 
death,  and  advised  Franklin  to  go  thither. 

Without  delay  Franklin  set  out  for  that 
place,  and  after  a  somewhat  adventurous 
journey  arrived  at  the  Market  Street  wharf 
about  eight  or  nine  o'clock  of  a  Sunday 
morning. 

Philadelphia  at  that  time  was  a  comfort 
able  town  of  some  ten  thousand  inhabitants, 


BEGINNINGS  IN  PHILADELPHIA    23 

extending  a  mile  or  more  along  the  Delaware 
and  reaching  only  a  few  blocks  back  into  the 
country.  It  was  a  shady  easy-going  place, 
with  pleasant  gardens  about  the  houses,  and 
something  of  Quaker  repose^and  substantial 
thrift  lent  a  charm  to  its  busy  life.  Men 
were  still  living  who  could  remember  when 
unbroken  forests  held  the  place  of  Penn's 
city :  — 

41  And  the  streets  still  reecno  the  names  of  the  trees  of 

the  forest, 

As  if  they  fain  would  appease  the  Dryads  whose  haunts 
they  molested." 

Franklin  was  fond  of  contrasting  his  hum 
ble  entrance  into  his  adopted  home  with  the 
honorable  station  he  afterwards  acquired 
there.  He  was,  as  he  says,  in  his  working 
dress,  his  best  clothes  coming  round  by  sea. 
He  was  dirty  from  being  so  long  in  the 
boat.  His  pockets  were  stuffed  out  with 
shirts  and  stockings,  and  he  knew  no  one  nor 
where  to  look  for  lodging.  Fatigued  with 
walking,  rowing,  and  the  want  of  sleep,  he 
was  very  hungry ;  and  his  whole  stock  of  cash 
consisted  in  a  single  dollar  and  about  a  shil- 


24  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

ling  in  copper  coin,  which  he  gave  to  the  boat 
men  for  his  passage.  At  first  they  refused 
it  on  account  of  his  having  rowed,  but  he  in 
sisted  on  their  taking  it.  "  Man  is  some 
times,"  he  adds,  "more  generous  when  he 
has  little  money  than  when  he  has  plenty ; 
perhaps  to  prevent  his  being  thought  to  have 
but  little." 

It  was  indeed  a  strange  entrance  for  the 
future  statesman  and  scientist.  As  he  walked 
up  to  Market  Street  he  met  a  boy  with 
bread,  which  reminded  him  forcibly  of  his 
hunger,  and  asking  the  boy  where  he  had 
got  his  loaf  he  went  straight  to  the  same 
baker's.  Here,  after  some  difficulty  due  to 
difference  of  names  in  Boston  and  Philadel 
phia,  he  provided  himself  with  three  "  great 
puffy  rolls  "  for  threepence,  and  with  these 
he  started  up  Market  Street,  eating  one  and 
carrying  one  under  each  arm,  as  his  pockets 
were  already  full.  On  the  way  he  passed  the 
door  of  Mr.  Read's  house,  where  his  future 
wife  saw  him  and  thought  he  made  an  awk 
ward,  ridiculous  appearance.  At  Fourth 
Street  he  turned  across  to  Chestnut  and 


BEGINNINGS  IN  PHILADELPHIA    25 

walked  down  Chestnut  and  Walnut,  munch 
ing  his  roll  all  the  way.  Coming  again  to 
the  river  he  took  a  drink  of  water,  gave  away 
the  two  remaining  rolls  to  a  poor  woman, 
and  started  up  Market  Street  again.  He 
found  a  number  of  clean-dressed  people  all 
going  in  one  direction,  and  by  following  them 
was  led  into  the  great  meeting-house  of  the 
Quakers.  There  he  sat  down  and  looked 
about  him.  It  was  apparently  a  silent  meet 
ing,  for  not  a  word  was  spoken,  and  the  boy, 
being  now  utterly  exhausted,  fell  into  a  sleep 
from  which  he  was  roused  only  at  the  close 
of  the  service. 

That  night  he  lodged  at  the  Crooked 
Billet,  which  despite  its  ominous  name  seems 
to  have  been  a  comfortable  inn,  and  the  next 
morning,  having  dressed  as  neatly  as  he 
could,  set  out  to  find  employment.  Andrew 
Bradford  had  no  place  for  him  ;  but  another 
printer  named  Keimer,  who  had  recently  set 
up  in  business,  was  willing  to  give  him 
work.  It  was  a  queer  house  and  a  queer 
printer.  There  was  an  old  damaged  press, 
on  which  Franklin  exercised  his  skill  in  re- 


26  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

pairing,  and  a  small  worn-out  font  of  type. 
Keimer  himself,  who  seems  to  have  been  a 
grotesque  compound  of  knave  and  crank, 
was  engaged  at  once  in  composing  and  set 
ting  up  in  type  an  elegy  on  the  death  of  a 
prominent  young  man.  He  is  the  only  poet 
to  my  knowledge  who  ever  used  the  composi 
tion-stick  instead  of  a  pen  for  the  vehicle  of 
inspiration.  The  elegy  may  still  be  read  in 
Duyckinck's  Cyclopaedia,  and  on  perusing  it 
we  may  well  repeat  the  first  line  :  — 

"  What  mournful  accents  thus  accost  mine  ear  !  " 

Now  began  a  period  of  growing  prosperity 
for  our  philosopher.  The  two  printers  of 
Philadelphia  were  poorly  qualified  for  their 
business,  and  Franklin  by  his  industry  and 
intelligence  soon  rendered  himself  indispen 
sable  to  Keimer.  He  was  making  money, 
had  discovered  a  few  agreeable  persons  to 
pass  his  evenings  with,  and  was  contented. 
He  took  lodging  with  Mr.  Read,  and  now,  as 
he  says,  "  made  rather  a  more  respectable 
appearance  in  the  eyes  of  Miss  Bead." 

He  was  even  in  a  fair  way  to  forget  Boston 
when  an  incident  occurred  of  some  importance 


BEGINNINGS   IN  PHILADELPHIA    27 

in  his  life.  Eobert  Holmes,  who  had  mar 
ried  his  sister,  being  at  Newcastle,  forty  miles 
below  Philadelphia,  heard  of  him  and  wrote 
entreating  him  to  return  home.  To  this  ap 
peal  Franklin  replied  giving  his  reasons  for 
leaving  Boston.  Now  Sir  William  Keith, 
governor  of  Pennsylvania,  chanced  at  this 
time  to  be  at  Newcastle,  and,  being  shown 
the  letter  by  Holmes,  was  so  much  impressed 
with  it  that  he  determined  to  offer  en 
couragement  to  the  writer.  Great,  then,  was 
the  surprise  of  Benjamin  and  his  master 
when  one  day  the  governor  and  another 
gentleman  in  their  fine  clothes  called  at  the 
printing-house  and  inquired  for  the  young 
man.  They  took  him  to  a  tavern  at  the  cor 
ner  of  Third  Street,  and  there  over  the 
Madeira  the  governor  proposed  that  Benja 
min  should  start  an  independent  shop,  pro 
mising  in  this  case  to  give  him  the  government 
printing.  Benjamin  was  skeptical,  but  at 
last  it  was  decided  that  he  should  go  to  Bos 
ton  and  seek  help  of  his  father ;  and  in  April, 
1724,  with  a  flattering  letter  from  the  gov 
ernor,  he  set  out  for  his  old  home.  Benja- 


28  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

min's  father,  however,  though  pleased  by  the 
governor's  approval,  thought  the  boy  too 
young  to  assume  so  much  responsibility,  and 
sent  him  back  to  Philadelphia  with  no  money, 
but  with  his  blessing  and  abundant  good 
counsel,  advising  him  to  restrain  his  natural 
tendency  to  lampoon,  and  telling  him  that  by 
steady  industry  and  prudent  parismony  he 
might  save  enough  by  the  time  he  was  twenty- 
one  to  set  himself  up,  and  withal  promising 
help  if  he  came  near  the  matter. 

The  return  voyage  was  unimportant  save 
for  an  amusing  incident  which  showed  Frank 
lin's  innocence  at  that  time  whatever  he  may 
have  been  later  on,  and  for  an  agreement  he 
made  to  collect  a  debt  of  thirty-five  pounds 
in  Pennsylvania  for  one  Vernon,  —  an  agree 
ment  which  was  to  cost  him  considerable 
anxiety.  While  stopping  in  New  York,  too, 
his  reputation  as  a  reader  got  him  an  invita 
tion  to  visit  Governor  Burnet,  who  showed 
him  his  library  and  conversed  with  him  on 
books  and  authors.  "  This,"  as  Franklin 
I  observes,  "  was  the  second  governor  who  had 
».t.  1\  done  me  the  honor  to  take  notice  of  me,  and 


BEGINNINGS   IN  PHILADELPHIA    29 

for  a  poor  boy  like  me  it  was  very  pleas- 
ing." 

In  New  York  he  had  picked  up  his  old 
friend  Collins,  a  companion  of  his  childhood, 
who  had  preceded  him  from  Boston.  Collins 
nad  passed  from  license  of  belief  to  license 
of  morals,  and  was  now  besotting  himself 
with  drink.  On  the  way  to  Philadelphia 
Franklin  had  collected  the  money  due  to 
Vernon,  and  Collins  pressed  him  until  he 
drew  largely  on  this  sum  to  help  the  spend 
thrift.  Franklin  regarded  this  as  one  of  the 
chief  errata  of  his  life,  and  would  have  re 
pented  his  error  still  more  seriously  perhaps 
if  Vernon  had  not  allowed  him  time  to  make 
good  the  defalcation.  It  was  some  five 
years  before  he  was  able  to  restore  the 
money,  and  then,  having  paid  both  principal 
and  interest,  he  felt  a  load  taken  off  his 
mind. 

His  association  with  Collins  came  to  an 
amusing  end.  Once  when  they  were  on 
the  Delaware  with  some  other  young  men, 
Collins  refused  to  row  in  his  turn.  "  I  will 
be  rowed  home,"  said  he.  "  We  will  not  row 


30  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

you,"  said  Franklin.  "  You  must,"  said  he, 
"  or  stay  all  night  on  the  water,  just  as  you 
please."  The  others  were  willing  to  indulge 
him,  but  Franklin,  being  soured  with  his  other 
conduct,  continued  to  refuse.  Collins  swore 
he  would  make  Franklin  row  or  throw  him 
overboard,  and  came  along  stepping  on  the 
thwarts  to  carry  out  his  threat.  But  he  mis 
took  his  man.  Franklin  clapped  his  head 
under  the  fellow's  thighs  and,  rising,  pitched 
him  headforemost  into  the  river.  Collins  was 
a  good  swimmer,  but  they  kept  him  pulling 
after  the  boat  until  he  was  stifled  with  vex 
ation  and  almost  drowned.  And  that  was 
the  end  of  the  friendship  between  the  two. 
Collins  later  went  to  the  Barbadoes,  that 
limbo  of  the  unsuccessful  in  colonial  days, 
and  Franklin  never  heard  of  him  again. 

With  his  employer,  Keimer,  Franklin 
had  little  sympathy,  despising  both  his 
knavery  and  his  false  enthusiasms.  Kei 
mer  wore  his  beard  at  full  length,  because 
somewhere  in  the  Mosaic  law  it  is  said, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  mar  the  corners  of  thy 
beard."  He  likewise  kept  the  seventh  day 


FIRST   VOYAGE  TO  ENGLAND       31 

Sabbath.  Franklin  disliked  both  practices, 
but  agreed  to  them  on  condition  of  their 
adopting  a  vegetarian  diet,  this  whim  suiting 
him  at  the  time,  both  because  he  could  save 
money  by  it  and  because  he  wished  to  give 
himself  some  diversion  in  half  starving  the 
gluttonous  fanatic.  Poor  Keimer  suffered 
grievously,  grew  tired  of  the  project  in  three 
months,  longed  for  the  fleshpots  of  Egypt, 
and  ordered  a  roast  pig.  He  invited  Frank 
lin  and  two  women  friends  to  dine  with  him ; 
but  the  pig  being  brought  too  soon  upon  the 
table,  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation,  and 
ate  the  whole  before  his  guests  came. 

Having  to  do  with  such  a  man,  Franklin 
was  very  glad  to  accept  Sir  Wijliam  Keith's 
offer  to  set  him  up  alone.  It  was  agreed 
that  Franklin  should  sail  to  London,  with 
letters  of  introduction,  and  also  with  letters 
of  credit  for  purchasing  press,  types,  paper, 
and  such  like.  But  for  one  reason  and  an 
other  the  governor  delayed  writing  the  let 
ters,  and  at  last  Franklin  actually  found 
himself  afloat  and  on  the  way  to  London 
without  a  word  from  his  patron.  Great  was 


32  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

his  chagrin  when  he  learned  during  the  pas 
sage  that  it  was  a  habit  of  this  amiable 
magistrate  to  promise  anything  and  perform 
nothing.  Franklin's  comment  on  the  occa 
sion  displays  the  imperturbable  justice  of 
his  mind :  "  But  what  shall  we  think  of  a 
governor  playing  such  pitiful  tricks  and  im 
posing  so  grossly  on  a  poor  ignorant  boy ! 
It  was  a  habit  he  had  acquired.  He  wished 
to  please  everybody,  and  having  little  to 
give  he  gave  expectations.  He  was  other 
wise  an  ingenious,  sensible  man,  a  pretty 
good  writer,  and  a  good  governor  for  the 
people,  though  not  for  his  constituents,  the 
proprietaries." 

Franklin  reached  London  December  24, 
1724,  and  remained  there  some  nineteen 
months,  doing  many  things  and  learning 
many  things  during  this  time  that  were  of 
use  to  him  in  after  life.  But  interesting  as 
his  experiences  were,  we  pass  over  them  with 
a  few  words.  Without  difficulty  he  got 
work  with  the  printers,  and  employed  his 
time  industriously  —  of  that  there  could  be 
no  doubt.  As  always,  his  head  was  full  of 


FIRST  VOYAGE  TO  ENGLAND       33 

plans  of  economy  ;  and  we  are  amused  to  see 
him  carry  his  reforms  into  the  printing 
chapel,  attempting  to  persuade  the  men  to 
give  up  their  expensive  beer  and  take  to 
hot-water  gruel. 

But  though  Franklin  was  always  indus 
trious,  he  was  far  from  leading  a  confined 
life.  Then  as  ever  he  mixed  much  with 
men,  and  his  experience  in  London  added 
largely  no  doubt  to  his  knowledge  of  human 
nature.  He  even  saw  something  of  the  ways 
of  Grub  Street  through  his  friend  Ralph, 
who  had  come  with  him  from  Philadelphia. 
"  This  low  writer,"  as  Pope  called  him,  is 
now  remembered  only  for  a  couple  of  vicious 
lines  in  the  Dunciad,  and  for  the  ignomini 
ous  part  he  plays  in  Franklin's  Autobio 
graphy.  For  many  months  he  was  a  con 
tinual  dram  on  Franklin's  pocket,  and  seems 
to  have  been  the  boy's  evil  genius  in  immo 
rality  as  well. 

Another  acquaintance  introduced  him  to 
a  phase  of  character  quite  new  to  the  youth 
from  America.  This  was  an  old  maiden  lady 
of  seventy,  who  occupied  the  garret  of  his 


34  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

lodging  house.  She  was  a  Roman  Catholic, 
and  lived  the  secluded  life  of  a  nun,  having 
given  away  to  charities  all  her  estate  except 
twelve  pounds  a  year,  out  of  which  small 
sum  she  still  gave  a  part,  living  herself  on 
water  gruel  only,  and  using  no  fire  but  to 
boil  it.  Franklin  was  permitted  to  visit 
her  once,  and  remarks  that  she  was  cheerful 
and  polite,  as  also  that  the  room  was  almost 
without  furniture.  "  She  looked  pale,"  he 
says,  "  but  was  never  sick ;  and  I  give  it  as 
another  instance  on  how  small  an  income 
life  and  health  may  be  supported." -  — Not 
another  word  !  Ah,  Doctor  Franklin,  you 
were  very  wise  in  this  world's  wisdom  !  Your 
life  was  for  a  young  struggling  nation  a 
splendid  example  of  probity  and  thrift  and 
self -culture.  And  yet  we  think  your  country 
men  could  wish  you  had  used  this  poor  en 
thusiast's  folly  as  something  else  than  a  mere 
lesson  in  economy. 

But  the  religious  imagination  played  a 
small  part  in  our  philosopher's  life,  and  least 
of  all  was  it  active  in  these  London  days. 
His  skepticism  in  fact  became  acute,  and 


FIRST   VOYAGE   TO   ENGLAND       35 

sought  relief  in  public  expression.  As  a 
compositor  Franklin  was  engaged  in  setting 
up  one  of  the  many  religious  treatises  then 
pouring  out  against  the  deists,  and  as  the 
author's  arguments  seemed  insufficient  to 
the  young  reasoner,  he  wrote  and  printed  a 
rejoinder.  This  is  the  pamphlet  called  "  A 
Dissertation  on  Liberty  and  Necessity,  Plea 
sure  and  Pain,"  which  he  inscribed  to  his 
friend  Ralph,  and  whose  printing  he  after 
wards  regretted  as  one  of  the  errata  of  his 
life.  It  is  a  disquisition  quite  after  the 
manner  of  the  day,  and,  though  it  has  no 
permanent  value,  is  nevertheless  a  most  un 
usual  production  for  a  boy  of  nineteen.  He 
accepts  the  belief  in  a  God  and  an  all-power 
ful  Providence,  and  argues  thence  the  com 
plete  absence  of  free  will  in  man ;  pleasure 
and  pain  are  necessary  correlatives,  and  can 
not  exist  apart ;  the  soul  is  perhaps  im 
mortal,  but  loses  its  personal  identity  at 
death. 

It  was  time  for  Franklin  to  come  home 
and  prepare  for  the  great  work  before  him. 
He  was  indeed  ready  to  come  when  his  skill 


36  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

in  swimming  almost  lost  him  to  this  country. 
He  had  made  such  an  impression  by  his  feats 
in  the  water  that  one  of  his  friends  and 
pupils  in  the  art  proposed  they  should  travel 
over  Europe  together,  and  support  them-, 
selves  by  giving  exhibitions.  Fortunately 
Mr.  Denham,  an  older  and  wiser  friend, 
persuaded  Franklin  to  return  with  him  to 
America. 


Ill 

RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS. THE   JUNTO 

FKANKLIN  reached  Philadelphia  some 
time  in  October,  1726,  and  found  many 
things  had  changed  during  his  absence. 
Keith  was  no  longer  governor,  but  walked 
the  streets  as  a  common  citizen.  He  seemed 
a  little  ashamed  at  seeing  Franklin,  and 
passed  him  by  without  saying  anything. 
Miss  Read,  too,  whom  he  had  left  under  the 
pledge  of  an  engagement,  had  grown  tired 
of  his  long  neglect,  and  at  the  insistence 
of  her  friends  had  married  a  potter  named 
Rogers.  The  union,  however,  had  proved 
unfortunate,  and  the  lady  was  again  living 
at  home  under  her  maiden  name,  it  being 
believed  that  Rogers  had  a  previous  wife. 

Franklin  at  once  entered  the  employment 
of  his  friend  Denham,  who  opened  a  thriving 
business  on  Water  Street.  But  after  an 
engagement  of  four  months  he  was  left  idle 


38  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

by  Mr.  Denham's  death,  and,  finding  nothing 
better  to  do,  returned  to  his  old  employer, 
'Keimer.  Here  he  received  good  wages  as 
foreman  of  the  shop,  but  soon  discovered 
that  he  was  engaged  only  to  teach  Keimer's 
raw  hands  the  trade,  and  was  to  be  dis 
missed  as  soon  as  this  was  accomplished. 
Franklin  had  a  habit  apparently  of  breaking 
with  a  burdensome  friend  by  means  of  a 
judicious  quarrel.  He  had  done  so  with  his 
brother  James,  with  Collins,  with  Ralph, 
and  now  he  parted  with  Keimer  in  the  same 
way.  After  an  interval  of  a  few  months, 
during  which  he  was  again  for  a  while  in  the 
employment  of  Keimer,  he  entered  into  part 
nership  with  one  of  the  hands,  Meredith  by 
name,  and  in  the  spring  of  1728  started  an 
independent  printing-house. 

At  this  point  Franklin  interrupts  the 
narrative  of  his  life  to  give  some  account 
of  his  religious  beliefs,  and  we  will  follow 
his  example.  And  first  of  all  let  us  say 
frankly  that  Parton,  whose  work  is  likely 
long  to  remain  the  standard  biography  of 
Franklin,  gives  a  false  color  to  the  reli- 


RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  39 

gious  experience  of  his  herox  Of  regenera 
tion  there  is  in  Franklin  no  sign,  but  instead 
of  that  a  constant  growth,  —  which  is  far 
more  wholesome.  He  was  always  an  amused 
and  skeptical  observer  of  the  revivals  and 
wild  enthusiasms  kindled  by  his  friend  White- 
field  and  by  the  inspired  preacher  of  North 
ampton.  And  it  is  quite  absurd  to  speak  of 
Franklin  as  "  the  consummate  Christian  of 
his  time."  There  was  in  him  none  of  the 
emotional  nature  and  little  of  the  spirituality 
that  go  to  make  the  complete  Christian. 
His  strength  lay  in  his  temperance,  prudence, 
justice,  and  courage,  —  eminently  the  pagan 
virtues ;  and  indeed  he  was  from  first  to  last 
a  great  pagan,  who  lapsed  now  and  then 
into  the  pseudo-religious  platitudes  of  the 
eighteenth  century  deists. 

His  family  had  early  adopted  the  reformed 
faith,  and  had  possessed  the  courage  to  con 
tinue  of  this  faith  through  the  bloody  persecu 
tions  of  Queen  Mary.  Under  Charles  II.  Ben 
jamin's  father  went  a  step  further,  casting  in 
his  lot  with  the  non-conformist  Presbyterians ; 
and  it  was  the  persecutions  of  that  society 


40  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

which  drove  him  with  his  family  to  America. 
Independence,  or  even  recalcitrance,  together 
with  broad  toleration  of  the  faith  of  others, 
was  in  the  family  blood,  and  Benjamin  con 
tinued  the  good  tradition.  From  revolt 
against  Rome  to  revolt  against  the  estab 
lished  English  Church,  and  from  this  to 
complete  independence  of  individual  belief, 
was  after  all  a  natural  progression. 

Among  the  books  which  Franklin  had 
read  in  Boston  were  Shaftesbury  and  Col 
lins,  representative  deistical  writers  of  the 
time,  and  he  had  been  led  by  them,  as  he 
says,  to  doubt  "  many  points  of  our  religious 
doctrines."  Now  there  are  in  religion  two 
elements  quite  distinct  and  at  times  even 
antagonistic,  though  by  the  ordinary  mind 
they  are  commonly  seen  as  blended  together. 
These  are  the  emotional  and  the  moral  na 
tures.  In  many  religious  ceremonies  of  the 
Orient,  religion  is  purely  an  emotion,  an  ex 
altation  of  the  nerves,  accompanied  at  times 
by  outbreaking  immorality ;  and  unfortu 
nately  the  same  phenomena  have  been  too 
often  seen  in  our  own  land.  This  emotional 


RELIGIOUS   BELIEFS  41 

element  is  always  connected  with  the  imagi 
nation  and  with  belief  in  some  form  of  reve 
lation.  The  other  element  of  religion  is  the 
law  of  morality  which  has  been  taught  the 
world  over  by  true  philosophers,  and  which  de 
pends  at  last  on  the  simple  feeling  that  a  man 
should  to  a  certain  varying  extent  sacrifice 
his  personal  advantage  for  the  good  of  the 
community.  Now  the  deists  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  of  whom  Voltaire  was  the  great 
champion,  denied  revelation  and  sought  to 
banish  the  emotions  from  religion.  They 
believed  in  a  God  who  manifested  himself 
in  the  splendid  pageantry  of  nature,  and  this 
they  called  natural  revelation.  They  laid 
especial  emphasis  on  morality,  but  in  their 
attempt  to  sever  morals  from  enthusiasm 
(enthousiasmos,  god-in-us)  they  too  often 
reduced  human  life  to  a  barren  formula. 
From  this  brief  account  it  will  be  seen  how 
naturally  Franklin,  with  his  parentage  and 
particular  genius,  fell  a  prey  to  the  teachings 
of  Shaftesbury. 

After  a  little  while,  however,  he  began  to 
notice  that  certain  of  his  friends  who  pro- 


42  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

tested  most  loudly  against  religion  were 
quite  untrustworthy  in  their  morals  as  well. 
Moreover  he  attributed  several  errata  of  his 
own  early  life  to  lack  of  religious  prin 
ciples,  and  to  remedy  this  defect  he  now 
undertook  —  deliberately  if  we  may  credit 
his  later  confessions  —  to  build  up  a  religion 
of  his  own.  There  is,  one  must  acknow 
ledge,  something  grotesque  in  this  endeavor 
to  supply  the  warmth  of  the  emotional  imagi 
nation  by  the  use  of  cold  reason,  and  had 
Franklin  possessed  less  wit  and  more  humor 
he  would  never  have  fallen  into  such  bathos. 
The  little  book  still  exists  in  which  Franklin 
wrote  out  his  creed  and  private  liturgy. 
The  creed  expresses  a  belief  in  "one  Su 
preme,  most  perfect  Being,  Author  and  Fa 
ther  of  the  gods  themselves."  Finding  this 
God  to  be  infinitely  above  man's  comprehen 
sion,  our  religionist  goes  on  to  say :  "I  con 
ceive,  then,  that  the  Infinite  has  created 
many  beings  or  gods  vastly  superior  to  man, 
who  can  better  conceive  his  perfections  than 
we,  and  return  him  a  more  rational  and  glo 
rious  praise.  ...  It  may  be  these  created 


RELIGIOUS   BELIEFS  43 

gods  are  immortal ;  or  it  may  be  that,  after 
many  ages,  they  are  changed,  and  others 
supply  their  places.  Howbeit,  I  conceive 
that  each  of  these  is  exceeding  wise  and 
good,  and  very  powerful ;  and  that  each  has 
made  for  himself  one  glorious  sun,  attended 
with  a  beautiful  and  admirable  system  of 
planets.  It  is  that  particular  wise  and  good 
God,  who  is  the  author  and  owner  of  our 
system,  that  I  propose  for  the  object  of  my 
praise  and  adoration."  Thereupon  follows 
the  form  of  adoration,  or  liturgy,  including 
an  invocation,  psalm,  indication  of  philo 
sophic  reading  to  take  the  place  of  the  lessons, 
singing  of  the  Hymn  to  the  Creator  from 
Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  and  litany.  The 
whole  is  not  without  elevation,  and  the  litany, 
composed  as  it  is  by  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
two,  touches  one  with  a  feeling  almost  of 
pathos  for  its  true  humility  and  reaching 
out  after  virtue. 

Franklin  continued  to  use  this  form  of 
worship  for  a  number  of  years  ;  but  its  fan 
tastic  nature  seems  to  have  dawned  on  him 
at  last,  and  he  gave  it  up  for  a  still  simpler 


44  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

creed  consisting  merely  in  reverence  for  the 
Deity  and  in  respect  for  the  moral  law.  In 
the  matter  of  public  worship  he  was  of  the 
same  opinion  as  Spinoza  and  many  other 
philosophers.  He  esteemed  public  worship 
salutary  for  the  state,  and  paid  an  annual 
subscription  to  the  Presbyterian  Church  in 
Philadelphia;  but  he  also  esteemed  it  his 
privilege  to  stay  away  from  service,  and  in 
dulged  in  this  privilege  to  the  full,  making 
Sunday  his  chief  day  of  study.  Though 
affiliated  in  this  way  to  the  Presbyterians, 
he  showed  perfect  impartiality,  or  even  in 
difference,  to  the  various  denominations  of 
the  Christian  world.  The  only  sect  he  ever 
really  praised  was  the  Dunkers,  whom  he 
commended  for  their  modesty  in  not  formu 
lating  a  creed.  He  quotes  with  pleasure  the 
character  given  himself  of  being  merely  "  an 
honest  man  of  no  sect  at  all."  Tolerance  in 
religion  and  in  every  other  walk  of  life  was 
indeed  a  marked  and  distinguishing  trait  of 
his  character.  He  was  of  the  mind  of  Bishop 
Warburton,  when  he  said,  "  Orthodoxy  is 
my  doxy  and  Heterodoxy  is  your  doxy." 


RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS  45 

It  is  a  little  disconcerting  to  find  our 
philosopher  himself  proposing  a  new  sect, 
which  should  be  called  the  Society  of  the 
Free  and  Easy,  and  which  actually  pro 
gressed  so  far  as  to  possess  two  enthusiastic 
disciples.  The  creed  of  this  projected  sect 
may  be  taken  as  an  expression  of  Franklin's 
mature  belief :  — 

"  That  there  is  one  God,  who  made  all 
things. 

"  That  he  governs  the  world  by  his  pro 
vidence. 

"  That  he  ought  to  be  worshipped  by 
adoration,  prayer,  and  thanksgiving. 

"  But  that  the  most  acceptable  service  to 
God  is  doing  good  to  man. 

"  That  the  soul  is  immortal. 

"  And  that  God  will  certainly  reward  vir 
tue  and  punish  vice,  either  here  or  here 
after." 

The  real  religion  of  his  life  consisted 
in  the  practice  of  virtue  with  a  minimum 
of  emotional  imagination.  His  methodical 
mind  found  it  convenient  to  tabulate  the 
virtues  in  a  manner  more  precise,  as  he 


46  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

thought,  than  they  usually  appear.  His 
table  is  not  without  interest :  - 

"  1.  TEMPERANCE.  —  Eat  not  to  dull- 
ness  ;  drink  not  to  elevation. 

"2.  SILENCE.  —  Speak  not  but  what  may 
benefit  others  or  yourself ;  avoid  trifling 
conversation. 

"3.  ORDER. —  Let  all  your  things  have 
their  places ;  let  each  part  of  your  business 
have  its  time. 

"4.  KESOLUTION.  —  Kesolve  to  perform 
what  you  ought ;  perform  without  fail  what 
you  resolve. 

"  5.  FRUGALITY.  —  Make  no  expense  but 
to  do  good  to  others  or  yourself  ;  i.  e.,  waste 
nothing. 

"6.  INDUSTRY.  —  Lose  no  time;  be  al 
ways  employed  in  something  useful;  cut  off 
all  unnecessary  actions. 

"  7.  SINCERITY.  —  Use  no  hurtful  deceit ; 
think  innocently  and  justly ;  and  if  you 
speak,  speak  accordingly. 

"8.  JUSTICE.  —  Wrong  none  by  doing 
injuries  or  omitting  benefits  that  are  your 
duty. 


RELIGIOUS   BELIEFS  47 

"  9.  MODERATION.  -  -  Avoid  extremes  ; 
forbear  resenting  injuries  so  much  as  you 
think  they  deserve. 

"  10.  CLEANLINESS.  —  Tolerate  no  un- 
cleanliness  in  body,  clothes,  or  habitation. 

"11.  TRANQUILLITY.  —  Be  not  disturbed 
at  trifles,  or  at  accidents  common  or  un 
avoidable. 

"12.  CHASTITY.  .  .  . 

"  13.  HUMILITY. -- Imitate  Jesus  and 
Socrates." 

These  virtues  he  has  arranged  in  such  an 
order  that  the  acquisition  of  one  naturally 
leads  to  the  acquisition  of  the  following. 
As  regards  chastity,  he  says  himself :  "  The 
hard-to-be-governed  passion  of  youth"  had 
more  than  once  led  him  astray.  But  there 
is  every  reason  to  suppose  he  exercised  great 
self-control  in  this  as  in  all  other  passions. 
We  may  remark  here  that  Franklin  had  an 
illegitimate  son,  William,  whom  he  reared 
in  his  own  home,  but  who  caused  him  great 
pain  by  siding  with  the  Tories  in  the  Revo 
lution.  An  illegitimate  son  of  William, 
born  in  London  and  named  William  Temple 


48  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

Franklin,  adhered  to  the  grandfather  and 
was  a  great  comfort  to  him  in  his  old  age. 
One  other  orv  these  virtues  Franklin  could 
never  acquire.  He  confesses  sadly  that  try 
as  he  might  he  could  never  learn  orderliness. 
But  in  general  it  may  be  said  that  few  men 
have  ever  set  before  themselves  so  wise  a 
law  of  conduct,  and  that  still  fewer  men 
have  ever  come  so  near  to  attaining  their 
ideal.  This  was  both  because  his  ideal  was 
so  thoroughly  practical,  and  because  he  was 
a  man  of  indomitable  will  who  had  genuinely 
chosen  true  Philosophy  as  his  guide.  "  O 
vitae  Philosophia  dux!  O  virtutum  inda- 
gatrix  expultrixque  vitiorum !  "  —  O  Philo 
sophy,  thou  guide  of  life !  thou  searcher  out 
of  virtues  and  expeller  of  vices  !  —  he  wrote 
as  one  of  the  mottoes  on  his  little  book  of 
conduct,  and  to  him  the  words  were  a  living 
reality. 

The  virtues  in  Franklin  were  eminently 
human.  Though  dwelling  in  a  community 
of  Quakers  and  often  identified  with  them, 
he  looked  to  anything  rather  than  the  inner 
light  for  guidance,  nor  could  he  conceive  the 


THE   JUNTO  49 

meaning  of  those  "  divine  pleasures  "  which 
William  Penn  declared  "  are  to  be  found  in 
a  free  solitude."  On  his  voyage  home  from 
London  the  boy  philosopher  had  written  in 
his  journal :  "  Man  is  a  sociable  being,  and 
it  is,  for  aught  I  know,  one  of  the  worst  of 
punishments  to  be  excluded  from  society." 
Accordingly  on  his  return  to  Philadelphia 
he  began  to  cultivate  seriously  his  "  sociable 
being." 

Among  the  few  clubs  famous  in  literature  \  [ ./ 
is  the  Junto  which  Franklin  established  in  u 
1727,    and   which   lasted   for   forty   years. 
This  club  was  a  little  circle  of  friends,  never 
more  than  twelve,  who  met  on  Friday  even 
ings  to  discuss  matters  of  interest.     Twenty- 
four  questions  were  read,  with  a  pause  after 
each  for  filling  and  drinking  a  glass  of  wine. 
Two  or  three  of  these  questions  will  suffice 
to  show  their  general  aim. 

"  1.  Have  you  met  with  anything  in  the 
author  you  last  read,  remarkable,  or  suitable 
to  be  communicated  to  the  Junto,  particularly 
in  history,  morality,  poetry,  physic,  travels, 
mechanic  arts,  or  other  parts  of  knowledge  ? 


50  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

"11.  Do  you  think  of  anything  at  present, 
in  which  the  Junto  may  be  serviceable  to 
mankind,  to  their  country,  to  their  friends, 
or  to  themselves  ? 

"15.  Have  you  lately  observed  any  en 
croachment  on  the  just  liberties  of  the  peo 
ple? 

"  20.  In  what  manner  can  the  Junto,  or 
any  of  them,  assist  you  in  any  of  your  hon 
orable  designs  ?  " 

Besides  the  answering  of  these  questions, 
there  were  regular  debates,  declamations,  and 
the  reading  of  essays  ;  while  the  wise  Frank 
lin  took  care  always  that  no  undue  heat 
should  enter  into  the  proceedings.  Singing 
and  drinking  and  other  amusements  also 
claimed  a  fair  share  of  the  time.  It  is 
curious  to  observe  that  in  his  Autobio 
graphy  Franklin  half  apologizes  for  men 
tioning  the  Junto,  and  declares  that  his 
reason  for  so  doing  was  to  show  how  the 
various  members  of  the  club  aided  him  in 
his  business.  Were  the  Autobiography  our 
only  source  of  information,  we  might  sum  up 
the  lessons  of  Franklin's  life  in  the  one  word 


THE  JUNTO  51 

Thrift.  The  truth  is  that  many  of  Frank 
lin's  schemes  for  public  improvement  first 
found  a  hearing*  in  the  secrecy  of  these 
friendly  meetings. 

Before  returning  to  Franklin's  active  life, 
let  us  insert  here  an  amusing  epitaph  which 
he  composed  about  this  time,  and  which  has 
become  justly  famous  :  — 

THE   BODY 

OF 

BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN 
PRINTER 

(LIKE  THE  COVER  OF  AN  OLD  BOOK 

ITS  CONTENTS  TORN  OUT 
AND  STRIPT  OF  ITS  LETTERING  AND  GILDING) 

LIES  HERE,  FOOD  FOR  WORMS. 

BUT  THE  WORK  SHALL  NOT  BE  LOST 

FOR  IT  WILL  (AS  HE  BELIEVED) 

APPEAR  ONCE  MORE 

IN  A  NEW  AND  MORE  ELEGANT  EDITION 
REVISED  AND  CORRECTED 

BY 
THE   AUTHOR. 


IV 


THE   SCIENTIST   AND   PUBLIC   CITIZEN   IN 
PHILADELPHIA 

FRANKLIN  was  twenty-two  years  old  when 
he  began  business  with  Meredith.  They  had 
no  capital,  and  in  fact  were  in  debt  for  part  of 
their  appurtenances.  Meredith  proved  not 
only  incompetent,  but  a  hard  drinker  as  well ; 
so  that  Franklin,  accepting  the  kindness  of 
two  friends  who  lent  him  the  money,  soon 
bought  his  partner  out  and  conducted  the 
shop  alone.  He^prospered  .steadily,  and 
in  twenty  years  was  able  to  retire  from  ac 
tive  business.  From  the  beginning  friends 
came  to  his  aid  :  through  a  member  of  the 
Junto  he  got  printing  from  the  Quakers  ;  by 
his  careful  work  he  drew  away  from  old 
Bradford  the  public  printing  for  the  Assem 
bly;  he  engaged  assistants,  and  before  many 
years  was  far  the  most  important  printer  in 
the  colonies.  Besides  his  regular  trade  he  was 


THE   SCIENTIST  53 

bookbinder,  sold  books  and  stationery,  and 
dealt  in  soap  and  any  other  commodity  that 
came  handy.  The  description  of  his  thrift 
we  must  give  in  his  own  words  :  "  In  or 
der  to  secure  my  credit  and  character  as  a 
tradesman,  I  took  care  not  only  to  be  in 
reality  industrious  and  frugal,  but  to  avoid 
the  appearance  to  the  contrary.  I  dressed 
plain,  and  was  seen  at  no  places  of  idle  diver 
sion.  I  never  went  out  a-fishing  or  shooting ; 
a  book  indeed  sometimes  debauched  me  from 
my  work,  but  that  was  seldom,  was  private, 
and  gave  no  scandal ;  and  to  show  that  I  was 
not  above  my  business  I  sometimes  brought 
home  the  paper  I  purchased  at  the  stores 
through  the  streets  on  a  wheelbarrow." 

When  Franklin  became  independent  of 
Keimer  he  turned  to  his  favorite  project  of 
establishing  a  newspaper.  But  in  this  case 
his  usual  habit  of  secrecy  failed  him,  and 
knowledge  of  his  plans  reached  Keimer's 
ears.  Immediately  his  old  master  anticipated 
him  by  issuing  proposals  for  a  paper  which 
he  grandiloquently  styled  "  The  Universal 
Instructor  in  all  Arts  and  Sciences,  and 


54  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

Pennsylvania  Gazette,"  —  an  utterly  absurd 
sheet,  whose  contents  were  taken  chiefly 
from  an  encyclopaedia  recently  published  in 
London.  To  counteract  this  Franklin  pub 
lished  in  Bradford's  paper,  "  The  Mercury," 
a  series  of  essays  after  the  manner  of  Addi- 
son,  to  which  he  subscribed  the  name  "  Busy- 
Body."  Other  members  of  the  Junto  con 
tributed  to  the  series ;  and  Keimer,  being 
stung  by  their  satire,  replied  with  coarse 
abuse,  and  also  with  attempted  imitation. 
But  Keimer  was  quite  unequal  to  the  con 
flict,  and  after  publishing  thirty-nine  num 
bers  of  the  paper  sold  it  for  a  small  sum  to 
Franklin  and  Meredith,  and  himself  moved 
to  the  Barbadoes.  Number  40,  October  2, 
1729,  under  the  simple  title  of  "  The  Penn 
sylvania  Gazette,"  came  from  Franklin's 
press.  The  encyclopaedic  extracts  were  cut 
short,  and  in  their  stead  appeared  what  news 
could  be  gathered,  with  occasional  clever 
essays  such  as  only  Franklin  could  write. 
It  was  for  the  times  a  good  paper,  and  the 
printing  was  admirably  done. 

With  prosperity  Franklin  began  to  think 


THE  SCIENTIST  55 

of  matrimony.  A  family  of  Godfreys  lived 
in  the  same  house  with  him,  and  now  Mrs. 
Godfrey  undertook  to  make  a  match  be 
tween  him  and  the  daughter  of  a  relative  of 
hers.  Franklin's  account  of  this  affair  for 
its  coolness  and  placidity  may  almost  be 
compared  with  Gibbon's  "  I  sighed  as  a 
lover,  I  obeyed  as  a  son."  On  learning 
that  the  girl's  parents  could  not  or  would 
not  give  with  her  enough  money  to  pay  off 
his  debts,  the  gallant  suitor  at  once  and  irre 
vocably  withdrew. 

He  then  looked  about  him  for  another 
match,  but  found  to  his  chagrin  that  an 
adventurous  printer  could  not  command  an 
agreeable  wife  and  a  dowry  at  the  same 
time.  Being  determined  to  marry,  that 
he  might  bring  order  into  his  life,  he  at 
last  turned  to  Miss  Read,  with  whom  he 
had  maintained  a  friendly  correspondence, 
and  notwithstanding  the  difficulties  in  the 
way  married  her  on  the  1st  of  Septem 
ber,  1730.  If  he  rejected  Miss  Godfrey 
because  she  brought  no  dowry  with  her,  he 
praised  his  wife  chiefly  because  she  aided 


56  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

him  in  Bis  economies.  "  He  that  would 
thrive  must  ask  his  wife,"  he  quotes,  and 
congratulates  himself  that  he  has  a  wife  as 
much  disposed  to  frugality  as  himself.  She 
helped  in  the  business ;  "they  kept  no  idle 
servants  ;  their  table  was  plain  and  simple, 
their  furniture  of  the  cheapest.  His  break 
fast  for  a  long  time  was  bread  and  milk,  and 
he  ate  it  out  of  a  twopenny  earthen  porrin 
ger  with  a  pewter  spoon.  "  But  mark,"  he 
adds,  "  how  luxuries  will  enter  families  and 
make  a  progress  despite  of  principles  :  being 
called  one  morning  to  breakfast,  I  found  it 
in  a  china  bowl,  with  a  spoon  of  silver ! 
They  had  been  bought  for  me  without  my 
knowledge  by  my  wife,  and  had  cost  her  the 
enormous  sum  of  twenty-three  shillings,  for 
which  she  had  no  other  excuse  or  apology  to 
make  but  that  she  thought  her  husband  de 
served  a  silver  spoon  and  china  bowl  as  well 
as  any  of  his  neighbors.  This  was  the  first 
appearance  of  plate  and  china  in  our  house, 
which  afterward,  in  a  course  of  years  as  «)ur 
wealth  increased,  augmented  gradually  to 
several  hundred  pounds  in  value." 


THE  SCIENTIST  67 

Mrs.  Franklin's  temper  was  not  of  the 
serenest,  and  her  manners  perhaps  were  not 
such  as  would  have  honored  him  had  she 
followed  him  into  the  great  world ;  but  she 
made  him  a  good  wife,  —  and  we  need  not 
repeat  the  tattle  which  we  are  told  is .  still 
current  among  some  of  the  high'  families  of 
Philadelphia.  They  had  two  children,  —  a 
son,  the  idol  of  his  father's  heart,  who  died 
as  a  child  ;  and  a  daughter,  who  married 
Eichard  Bache,  and  is  the  ancestress  of  a 
large  family. 

In  this  happy  home,  and  as  his  business 
prospered,  Franklin  found  more  and  more 
time  for  study  and  self-improvement.  In 
1733  he  began  the  acquisition  of  languages, 
teaching  himself  to  read  French-fluently,  and 
then  passing  on  to  Italian  Imd  Spanish. 
Chess  was  always  a  favorite  amusement  with 
him ;  and  we  can  imagine  the  grave  philo 
sopher  playing  a  cautious  and  invulnerable 
game,  with  now  and  then,  when  least  ex 
pected,  a  brilliant  sally.  But  his  conscience 
seems  always  to  have  protested  against  the 
waste  of  time  involved,  and  he  now  made 


58  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

use  of  the  game  to  forward  his  studies. 
With  his  favorite  antagonist  he  agreed  that 
the  victor  in  each  game  should  impose  some 
task  in  Italian,  which  the  other  on  his  honor 
was  to  complete  before  the  next  meeting. 
As  his  opponent  was  a  pretty  even  match 
for  him  they  both  made  steady  progress  in 
the  language.^  In  Latin  he  had  had  a  year's 
instruction  at  school,  and  later  in  life  he 
dabbled  a  little  in  that  language ;  but  his 
knowledge  of  the  classics  was  always  super 
ficial,  and  he  seems  to  have  entertained 
something  like  a  spite  against  them. 

In  1732  Franklin  began  the  publication 
of  an  almanac  under  the  name  of  Richard 
Saunders,  which  he  continued  for  twenty- 
five  years,  and  which  gained  immense  popu 
larity  as  Poor  Richard's  Almanac.  It  was 
the  flourishing  time  of  such  publications. 
Since  the  year  1639,  when  Stephen  Daye 
printed  his  first  almanac  at  Cambridge,  these 
annual  messages  had  increased  in  number 
until  after  theology  they  became  perhaps  the 
most  genuine  feature  of  colonial  literature. 
And  from  the  first  they  displayed  the  sort 


THE  SCIENTIST  .        59 

of  shrewdness  and  humor  which  have  always 
been  characteristic  of  the  American  mind. 
So,  too,  the  bulk  of  Poor  Richard's  produc 
tion  was  humor,  sometimes  blunt  and  coarse, 
and  sometimes  instinct  with  the  finest  irony. 
Perhaps  the  best  of  Poor  Richard's  jokes 
is  that  played  at  the  expense  of  Titan 
Leeds,  his  rival  in  Philadelphia.  In  the 
first  issue  Mr.  Saunders  announces  the  immi 
nent  death  of  his  friend  Titan  Leeds  :  "  He 
dies,  by  my  calculation,  made  at  his  request, 
on  October  17,  1733,  3  ho.,  29  m.,  p.  M.,  at 
the  very  instant  of  the  ^  of  Q  and  $  .*  By 
his  own  calculation,  he  will  survive  till  the 
26th  of  the  same  month.  This  small  differ 
ence  between  us  we  have  disputed  whenever 
we  have  met  these  nine  years  past ;  but  at 
length  he  is  inclined  to  agree  with  my  judg 
ment.  Which  of  us  is  most  exact  a  little 
time  will  now  determine.  As,  therefore, 
these  Provinces  may  not  longer  expect  to 
see  any  of  his  performances  after  this  year, 
I  think  myself  free  to  take  up  the  task." 
Naturally  Mr.  Titan  Leeds  objected  with 

c5  signifies  conjunction  ;  Q  the  sun ;   $  Mercury. 


<  60  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

strenuous  voice  to  this  summary  manner  of 
being  shuffled  out  of  the  world  ;  and  Frank 
lin's  yearly  protest  that  Leeds  is  really  dead, 
and  his  appeal  to  the  degenerating  wit  of 
Leeds' s  almanac  to  prove  his  assertion,  is  one 
of  the  most  successful  and  malicious  jokes 
ever  perpetrated.  We  ought  to  add,  how 
ever,  that  this  venomous  jest  is  borrowed 
bodily  from  Dean  Swift's  treatment  of  the 
poor  almanac-maker,  Partridge.  Indeed  it 
might  be  said  of  Franklin,  as  Moliere  said 
of  himself,  that  he  took  his  own  wherever 
he  found  it. 

But  what  gave  the  almanac  its  permanent 
fame  was  the  cleverness  of  the  maxims  scat 
tered  through  its  pages.  These  wise  saws 
Franklin  gathered  from  far  and  wide,  often, 
however,  reshaping  them  and  marking  them 
with  the  stamp  of  his  peculiar  genius.  As 
might  be  expected,  they  are  chiefly  directed 
to  instill  the  precepts  of  industry  and  fru 
gality.  On  ceasing  to  edit  the  almanac  in 
1757  Franklin  gathered  together  the  best  of 
these  proverbs  and  wove  them  into  a  con 
tinuous  narrative,  which  he  pretends  to  have 


THE  SCIENTIST  61 

heard  spoken  at  an  auction  by  an  old  man 
called  Father  Abraham.  This  speech  of- 
Father  Abraham  became  immediately  fa 
mous,  was  reprinted  in  England,  was  trans 
lated  into  the  languages  of  Europe,  and  still 
lives.  It  made  the  name  of  Poor  Richard 
a  household  word  the  world  over. 

Franklin,  however,  had  many  intellectual 
interests  besides  reading  and  writing.  He 
was  always  interested  in  music,  himself  play 
ing  the  guitar  and  harp  and  violin ;  and  one 
of  his  proudest  achievements  was  the  perfec 
tion  of  a  musical  instrument  called  the  ar- 
monica,  which  consisted  of  a  series  of  glasses 
so  designed  as  to  give  forth  the  notes  of  the 
musical  scale  when  chafed  with  the  mois 
tened  finger. 

He  was  moreover  sensitive  in  his  own  way 
to  the  various  spiritual  movements  that  swept 
over  the  country.  This  was  the  period  of 
wild  revivals,  when  religion,  entering  into 
the  converted  soul  with  inconceivable  vio 
lence,  found  expression  in  gasping  shrieks, 
rigid  faintings,  and  strong  convulsions  ;  and 
the  leader  of  this  movement,  strange  as  it 


62  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

may  seem,  was  a  warm  friend  of  Franklin's. 
George  Whitefield  first  visited  Philadelphia 
in  1739,  and  immediately  filled  the  city  with 
enthusiasm  by  his  powerful  oratory.  Frank 
lin  was  astonished  at  the  hold  he  got  on  the 
people,  especially  as  he  assured  them  they 
were  naturally  half  beasts  and  half  devils  ; 
but  our  philosopher  admits  that  he  himself 
succumbed  once  to  the  preacher's  spell. 
Whitefield  was  preaching  a  begging  sermon 
for  a  project  which  Franklin  did  not  approve, 
and  the  latter  made  a  silent  resolve  that  he 
would  not  contribute.  He  had  in  his  pocket 
a  handful  of  copper  money,  three  or  four 
silver  dollars,  and  five  pistoles  in  gold.  As 
the  orator  proceeded,  he  began  to  soften  and 
concluded  to  give  the  copper.  Another  stroke 
of  eloquence  made  him  ashamed  of  that 
and  determined  him  to  give  the  silver  ;  and 
the  peroration  was  so  admirable  that  he  emp 
tied  his  pocket  wholly  into  the  collector's  dish, 
gold  and  all.  But  he  was  never  too  much 
carried  away  to  omit  analyzing  and  observ 
ing  ;  and  on  one  occasion,  when  Whitefield 
was  preaching  in  the  open  air,  he  calculated 


THE  SCIENTIST  63 

by  a  clever  experiment  that  the  speaker  might 
be  heard  by  more  than  thirty  thousand  per 
sons.  Nor  did  he  suffer  Whitefield's  cant 
phrases  to  pass  unchallenged.  At  one  time 
he  invited  the  preacher  to  stop  at  his  house, 
and  Whitefield  in  accepting  declared  that  if 
Franklin  made  the  kind  offer  for  Christ's 
sake  he  should  not  miss  of  a  reward.  To 
which  the  philosopher  replied  :  "  Don't  let 
me  be  mistaken  ;  it  was  not  for  Christ's  sake, 
but  for  your  sake." 

This  intimate  acquaintance  with  White- 
field  forms  something  like  a  bond  of  union 
between  Franklin  and  his  only  intellectual 
compeer,  Jonathan  Edwards ;  and  the  differ 
ent  attitude  of  the  two  men  towards  the  wan 
dering  revivalist  is  a  good  illustration  of  the 
great  contrast  in  their  characters.  If  Frank 
lin  may  in  some  ways  be  called  the  typical 
American,  yet  the  lonely,  introverted,  God- 
intoxicated  soul  of  Edwards  stands  as  a  sol 
emn  witness  to  depths  of  understanding  in 
his  countrymen  which  Dr.  Franklin's  keen 
wit  had  no  means  of  fathoming.  But  in  one 
respect  the  two  minds  were  alike :  they  were 


64  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

both,  acute  observers  of  nature,  and  we  have 
only  to  read  Edwards's  treatise  on  spiders, 
written  when  he  was  twelve  years  old,  and  to 
follow  his  later  physical  investigations,  which 
indeed  foreshadowed  some  of  Franklin's  elec 
trical  discoveries,  to  learn  how  brilliant  a 
part  he  might  have  played  in  science  if  his  in 
telligence  hjjid  not  been  troubled  by  the  terri 
ble  theology  of  the  day.  As  for  Franklin,  we 
have  seen  the  inquisitive  bent  of  his  mind  in 
childhood,  and  as  he  grew  older  the  habit  of 
observing  and  recording  and  theorizing  be 
came  his  master  passion.  Though  scarcely 
a  professional  scientist,  his  various  discover 
ies  in  natural  history  and  his  mechanical  in 
ventions  brought  great  renown  to  him  as  a 
man,  and  were  even  an  important  factor  in 
the  national  struggle  for  independence. 

Nothing  was  too  small  or  too  great  to  at 
tract  his  investigating  eyes.  All  his  life  he 
was  interested  in  the  phenomena  of  health 
and  in  the  care  of  the  body,  and  even  as  a 
boy,  it  will  be  remembered,  he  had  experi 
mented  in  the  use  of  a  vegetarian  diet. 
He  had  his  own  theory  in  regard  to  colds, 


THE   SCIENTIST  65 

maintaining  that  they  are  not  the  result 
of  exposure  to  a  low  temperature,  but  are 
due  to  foul  air  and  to  a  relaxed  state  of 
the  body,  —  as  in  general  they  no  doubt 
are.  His  letters  are  full  of  clever  pro 
tests  against  the  common  theory,  and  at 
times  he  was  brought  by  his  opinions  into 
amusing  conflict  with  the  habits  of  other 
persons.  On  one  occasion  in  a  tavern  he 
was  compelled  to  occupy  the  same  bed  with 
John  Adams,  who,  being  an  invalid  and 
afraid  of  night  air,  shut  down  the  window. 
"  Oh  !  "  says  Franklin,  "  don't  shut  the  win 
dow,  we  shall  be  suffocated."  Adams  an 
swered  that  he  feared  the  evening  air.  Dr. 
Franklin  replied,  "  The  air  within  the  cham 
ber  will  soon  be,  and  indeed  now  is,  worse 
than  that  without  doors.  Come,  open  the 
window  and  come  to  bed,  and  I  will  convince 
you.  I  believe  you  are  not  acquainted  with 
my  theory  of  colds."  Whereupon  Adams 
got  into  bed,  and  the  Doctor  began  an 
harangue  upon  air  and  cold,  respiration  and 
perspiration,  with  which  the  Bostonian  was 
so  much  amused  that  he  soon  fell  asleep  and 


66  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Jeft  Franklin  and  his  philosophy  together. 
The  effect  of  drafts  on  chimneys  was  just  as 
interesting  to  our  philosopher  as  their  effect 
on  the  human  system,  and  it  was  one  of  his 
diversions  when  visiting  the  great  houses 
of  England  and  Europe  to  cure  smoky  fire 
places.  From  chimneys  to  stoves  is  an  easy 
step,  and  the  invention  of  the  so-called 
Pennsylvania  stove  is  one  of  his  best  known 
achievements. 

All  his  life  he  was  an  observer  of  the 
weather,  and  a  student  of  the  winds  and 
tides.  His  first  discovery  in  natural  history 
was  an  observation  of  the  fact  that  storms 
move  against  the  wind,  that  is,  for  instance, 
that  a  northeast  storm  along  the  coast  is" 
felt  at  Philadelphia  earlier  than  at  Boston.- 
He  made  a  careful  study  of  the  tempera 
ture  of  the  gulf  stream  in  the  Atlantic  ;  and 
in  a  letter  written  when  he  was  seventy- 
nine  years  old  he  gives  a  long  account  of 
his  inventions  and  observations  in  nautical 
matters. 

But    his   discoveries    in    electricity  quite 
overshadow  all  his  other  work  of  the  sort, 


THE  SCIENTIST  67 

and  on  them  must  rest  his  real  claim  to  sci 
entific  renown.  For  many  years  the  world 
had  been  amusing  itself  with  various  ma 
chines  for  making  sparks  and  giving  shocks, 
and  after  the  discovery  of  the  Leyden  jar,  in 
1745,  the  manipulation  of  electrical  toys  and 
machines  became  the  rage  among  scientists 
and  even  among  the  people  of  society.  Just 
about  this  time  a  friend  in  England  sent 
Franklin  specimens  of  the  glass  tubes  used 
to  create  electricity  by  friction,  and  immedi 
ately  Franklin's  inquisitive  mind  was  fired  to 
take  up  the  new  study.  So  fully  indeed  was 
his  attention  engrossed  by  the  series  of  experi 
ments  he  now  undertook,  alone  and  with 
several  investigating  friends  in  the  city,  that 
business  became  irksome  to  him  and  he  re- 
,  tired  from  active  management  of  the  printing 
house.  Besides  making  many  ingenious  toys 
and  showy  experiments,  Franklin  added  three 
contributions  of  real  importance  to  science. 

1.  He  anticipated  Faraday  in  the  discov 
ery  that  the  electricity  in  a  charged  Leyden 
jar  resides  on  the  glass  and  not  on  the  metal 
coatings.  He,  however,  made  no  generaliza 
tions  from  this  discovery. 


68  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

2.  He  advanced  the  fluid  theory  of  elec 
tricity,  recognizing  clearly  the  dual  nature  of 
the  varieties  commonly  called  positive  and 
negative    from    the   mathematical    symbols 
used  to  express  them. 

3.  He  established  the  identity  of  lightning 
and  electricity. 

To  understand  the  importance  of  this  last 
discovery  we  must  remember  with  what 
terror  the  world  had  hitherto  regarded  this 
bewildering  apparition  of  the  sky.  It  was 
not  so  much  the  dread  of  feeling  above  one 
an  irresponsible  power  subject  to  a  law  that 
knows  no  sympathy  with  human  life,  as  the 
more  debasing  fear  of  superstition,  that  sees 
in  the  red  thunderbolt  a  deadly  instrument 
of  vengeance  hurled  by  the  hand  of  an  angry 
deity,  and  that  loosens  the  inmost  sinews  of  a 
man's  moral  courage.  With  the  knowledge 
that  lightning  is  only  a  magnified  electrical 
spark,  fell  one  of  the  last  strongholds  of  false 
religion.  And  there  is  something  eminently 
fit  in  the  fact  that  this  lurking  mystery  of 
the  heavens  was  finally  exploded  by  Dr. 
Franklin,  the  exponent  of  common  sense. 


THE  SCIENTIST  69 

I  am  told  by  a  specialist  that  the  neatness 
and  thoroughness  of  the  reasoning  by  which 
Franklin  established  his  theory  before  pro 
ceeding  to  experimentation  are  most  lauda 
ble,  and  I  am  sure  his  letters  of  explana 
tion  have  a  literary  charm  not  often  found 
in  scientific  writing.  The  paper  in  which 
Franklin  developed  his  theory  and  showed 
how  it  might  be  tested  by  drawing  lightning 
from  the  clouds  by  means  of  a  pointed  wire 
set  up  on  a  steeple,  was  sent  to  his  friend  in 
England,  and  there  printed  ;  and  at  the  sug 
gestion  of  the  great  Buffon  the  same  paper 
was  translated  into  French.  The  pamphlet 
created  a  sensation  in  France,  and  the  pro 
posed  experiment  was  actually  performed  in 
'the  presence  of  the  king.  Before  the  re 
port,  however,  of  the  successful  experiment 
reached  Franklin  he  had  himself  verified 
,  his  theory,  using  a  kite  to  attain  an  altitude, 
as  there  was  no  spire  or  high  building  in 
Philadelphia.  Taking  his  son  with  him,  he 
went  to  an  old  cow  house  in  the  country,  be 
fore  a  storm,  and  there,  to  catch  the  electric 
fluid,  sent  up  his  kite  made  of  an  old  silk 


70  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

handkerchief.  A  wire  extended  from  the 
upright  stick  of  the  kite,  and  this  was  con 
nected  with  the  cord,  which  when  wet  acted 
as  a  good  conductor.  The  part  of  the  cord 
held  in  his  hand  was  of  silk,  and  between  this 
and  the  wet  hempen  cord  a  key  was  inserted 
and  connected  with  a  Leyden  jar.  How  suc 
cessful  the  experiment  proved  to  be,  all  the 
world  knows.  Somehow  all  the  important 
events  of  Franklin's  life  are  dramatic  and 
picturesque,  and  this  scene,  especially,  of  the 
philosopher  in  the  storm  drawing  down  the 
very  thunderbolts  of  heaven  has  always  had 
a  fascination  for  the  popular  mind.  The  de 
tailed  story  of  the  experiment  became  public 
only  through  Franklin's  conversation  with 
his  friends.  When  he  learned  that  his  the 
ory  had  been  previously  verified  in  France, 
his  modesty  was  so  great  that  in  writing  he 
simply  told  how  the  experiment  might  be 
performed  with  a  kite,  never  that  he  him 
self  had  actually  accomplished  it.  In  con 
sequence  of  this  discovery  he  was  at  once 
elected  a  member  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
London,  Yale  and  Harvard  gave  him  the 


THE  SCIENTIST  71 

honorary  degree  of  master  of  arts,  and  every 
where  he  was  celebrated  as  the  foremost 
philosopher  of  the  day. 

When  the  time  comes  we  shall  see  that 
Franklin's  scientific  fame  was  a  real  aid  to 
him  in  his  diplomatic  career  ;  now  we  must 
turn  our  eyes  backward  and  trace  from  the 
beginning  his  slow  rise  in  political  and  civic 
power.  And  it  is  a  peculiar  feature  of  the 
day  and  of  Franklin's  individual  character 
that  many  of  his  reforms  took  their  start  in 
the  gayety  of  social  intercourse.  There  was 
nothing  morose,  nothing  stern,  in  our  genial 
philosopher.  Though  always  temperate,  his 
vivacity  and  easy  politeness  made  him  wel 
come  in  any  merry  company  of  the  day. 
He  could  sing  with  the  best  of  the  young 
blades  and  even  compose  his  own  ditties ; 
and  one  of  these  songs,  "The  Old  Man's 
Wish,"  he  tells  us  he  sang  at  least  a  thou 
sand  times.  The  chorus  of  the  song  is  char 
acteristic  enough  to  be  quoted :  — 

"  May  I  govern  my  passions  with  absolute  sway, 
Grow  wiser  and  better  as  my  strength  wears  away, 
Without  gout  or  stone,  by  gentle  decay  ;  " 


72  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

and  another  ballad  in  praise  of  his  wife  still 
has  a  kind  of  popularity :  — 

"  Of  their  Chloes  and  Phyllises  poets  may  prate, 

I  sing  my  plain  country  Joan, 

These  twelve  years  my  wife,  still  the  joy  of  my  life,    ^ 
Blest  day  that  I  made  her  my  own." 

Franklin's  first  public  improvement  car 
ries  us  back  to  the  early  leathern-apron 
days  of  the  Junto.  Books  were  a  rare  com 
modity  among  the  frugal  members  of  that 
club,  and  for  a  while  they  increased  their  re 
sources  by  keeping  all  their  volumes  together 
in  the  club  room  for  common  use.  But  this 
plan  proving  hardly  feasible,  Franklin  in  the 
year  1731  drew  up  proposals  for  a  city  library. 
His  method  of  arousing  public  interest  in 
the  scheme  was  one  to  which  he  always  had 
recourse  on  such  occasions,  and  is  a  credit 
to  his  modesty  as  well  as  to  his  shrewdness. 
"  I  put  myself,"  he  says,  "  as  much  as  I  could 
out  of  sight,  and  stated  it  as  a  scheme  of  a 
number  of  friends,  who  had  requested  me  to 
go  about  and  propose  it  to  such  as  they 
thought  lovers  of  reading."  He  succeeded, 
as  he  always  did  in  his  projects,  and  the 


THE  SCIENTIST  73 

% 

library,  still  an  honored  institution  of  Phila 
delphia,  is  the  parent  of  all  the  subscrip 
tion  libraries  of  the  country. 

Through  the  aid  of  the  Junto,  also,  Frank 
lin  set  in  motion  another  project.  As  a 
boy  he  had  seen  the  first  fire  company  started 
in  Boston,  and  now  that  his  Quaker  home 
had  grown  to  be  a  thriving  city,  he  under 
took  to  introduce  the  same  system  there. 
No  doubt  many  of  our  readers  have  seen 
the  curious  relics  of  these  colonial  fire  com 
panies,  —  old  leathern  buckets  stamped 
with  various  devices  and  with  the  owner's 
name,  which  were  used  to  pass  water  rapidly 
from  hand  to  hand.  The  companies  had  a 
social  as  well  as  a  useful  aim,  so  that  families 
were  proud  to  preserve  such  memorials  of 
the  old  days. 

Owing  to  the-  wretched  system  in  vogue, 
the  night  watch  of  the  city  had  fallen  into 
a  deplorable  state,  the  watchmen  consisting 
of  a  set  of  ragamuffins  who  passed  their 
nights  in  tippling  and  left  the  town  to  take 
care  of  itself.  To  remedy  this  evil  Frank 
lin  made  use  of  the  Junto  and  of  his  paper, 


74  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

"The  Gazette,"  and  once  more  his  efforts 
were  successful. 

It  seemed,  indeed,  as  if  there  were  no 
limits  to  his  activity.  At  different  times 
he  bent  his  energies  to  getting  the  streets 
paved,  to  improving  the  lighting  of  the  city, 
to  introducing  various  novelties  in  agricul 
ture,  and  to  assisting  other  projects,  such 
as  the  establishment  of  the  Pennsylvania 
hospital.  More  important,  perhaps,  than, 
these  was  the  founding  of  the  academy 
which  has  since  developed  into  the  Univer 
sity  of  Pennsylvania.  As  early  as  1743  we 
find  Franklin  regretting  that  there  was  no 
convenient  college  where  he  might  send  his 
son  to  be  educated ;  and  in  1749  he  took  up 
the  matter  seriously,  publishing  a  pamphlet 
which  he  called,  "  Proposals  relating  to  the 
Education  of  Youth  in  Pennsylvania."  Nor 
did  his  zeal  end  here.  He  continued  to  urge 
on  the  project,  and  in  a  short  time  the  money 
was  raised  and  the  school  actually  opened. 
Franklin  was  for  more  than  forty  years  a 
trustee  of  the  institution,  and  took  just  pride 
in  the  good  which  it  accomplished  for  the 


THE  SCIENTIST  75 

community.  His  purpose  in  one  respect, 
however,  was  foiled  ;  he  was  an  ardent  advo 
cate  of  English  and  the  sciences  in  educa 
tion,  and  would  have  been  glad  to  have  the 
study  of  Latin  and  Greek  utterly  banished 
from  the  schools.  Fortunately  in  this  matter 
public  opinion  was  too  strong  for  him,  and 
he  was  obliged  to  succumb  to  the  regular 
curriculum.  For  some  reason,  whether  be 
cause  of  early  lack  of  training  in  these 
studies  or  because  his  mind  was  of  such  a 
sort  as  to  be  completely  absorbed  in  the  pre 
sent,  he  was  all  his  life  violently  prejudiced 
against  the  classics,  and  on  his  very  death 
bed  one  of  his  last  acts  was  to  compose  a 
mocking  diatribe  against  the  use  of  those 
languages.  It  is  one  of  the  few  cases  where 
his  judgment  was  marred,  not  by  the  limita 
tions  of  his  intelligence,  but  a  lack  of  the 
deeper  imagination,  —  where  he  applied  his 
footrule  of  utility  to  measure  quantities  be 
yond  its  reach. 

With  Franklin's  increasing  prosperity  and 
popularity  his  influence  in  matters  political 
grew  more  and  more  dominant.  His  first 


76  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

recognition  in  this  field  was  in  1736?  when  he 
was  chosen  clerk  of  the  General  Assembly,  — 
a  position  which  he  continued  to  hold  until  he 
was  elected  a  member  of  the  Assembly  itself. 
He  found  this  office  very  tedious,  but  amused 
himself  during  the  long  debates  by  con 
structing  magic  squares  of  figures  and  by 
other  diversions  of  the  sort.  Constant  to 
his  practice  he  lets  us  know  that  he  retained 
the  position  chiefly  because  it  enabled  him 
to  get  control  of  the  public  printing,  and 
once  when  threatened  by  the  advent  of  a 
new  member  with  loss  of  this  lucrative  em 
ployment  he  saved  himself  by  his  usual  re 
course  to  honorable  stratagem.  Having 
heard  that  this  gentleman  had  in  his  library 
a  certain  very  scarce  and  curious  book, 
Franklin  wrote  him  a  note  expressing  a  de 
sire  to  read  the  volume  and  asking  to  borrow 
it  for  a  few  days.  The  book  came  immedi 
ately,  and  the  two  students  were  at  once 
bound  together  in  friendship.  "  This  is  an 
other  instance,"  Franklin  adds,  "  of  the  truth 
of  an  old  maxim  I  had  learned,  which  says : 
4  He  that  has  once  done  you  a  kindness  will 


THE  SCIENTIST  77 

be  more  ready  to  do  you  another  than  he 
whom  you  yourself  have  obliged.'  " 

Other  positions  came  to  Franklin  in  due 
time.  The  very  next  year  he  was  made 
postmaster  of  Philadelphia,  and  filled  the 
office  so  well  that  some  years  later  he  was 
put  at  the  head  of  the  postal  system  for  the 
colonies.  This  gave  him  an  opportunity  to 
become  familiar  with  the  political  affairs  of 
the  whole  country  and  enhanced  his  useful 
ness  very  much. 

What  first  brought  him  into  real  promi 
nence  was  his  activity  during  the  troublesome 
times  that  now  followed  with  the  Indians. 
England  was  at  war  with  France,  and  as 
usual  the  combatants  stirred  up  the  savages 
to  commit  all  kinds  of  atrocities.  Franklin 
was  much  incensed  that  the  peace-loving 
Quakers  of  his  colony  should  refuse  to  make 
any  provision  for  defense  against  the  Indians 
on  the  western  frontier  or  against  possible 
attacks  of  the  French  from  the  river.  His 
indignation  was  increased  by  a  visit  to 
Boston  in  1746,  where  he  found  the  people 
in  a  state  of  warlike  fervor  after  the  con- 


78  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

quest  of  Louisburg ;  and  on  returning  home 
he  wrote  an  eloquent  pamphlet,  called 
"Plain  Truth,"  to  rouse  the  colony  to  a 
sense  of  its  peril.  Despite  the  half-hearted 
opposition  of  the  Quakers  in  the  Assembly 
companies  were  raised,  cannon,  by  the  shrewd 
policy  of  Franklin,  were  got  from  New  York, 
and  the  promoter  of  the  movement  was  even 
asked  to  act  as  colonel  of  the  troops,  —  an 
honor  which  he  declined.  One  of  Franklin's 
friends  now  warned  him  that  the  Quakers 
in  the  Assembly  would  dismiss  him  from  his 
position  as  clerk  and  advised  him  to  resign 
at  once  to  avoid  the  disgrace.  Franklin's 
reply,  which  he  was  fond  of  quoting  in  after 
life,  shows  the  sturdy  nature  of  the  man : 
"  I  shall  never  ask,  never  refuse,  nor  ever 
RESIGN  an  office."  As  it  happened,  how 
ever,  he  was  again  chosen  unanimously  at 
the  next  election,  and  we  may  suppose  that 
he  was  keen  enough  to  know  with  whom  he 
had  to  deal.  The  good  Quakers  would  not 
fight,  but  they  were  not  always  averse  to 
have  some  one  do  their  fighting  for  them. 
We  are  approaching  the  tumultuous  times 


THE  SCIENTIST  79 

of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  when  the  sound 
of  cannon  was  indeed  heard  round  the  world, 
and  when  the  prowess  of  England's  arms 
added  India  and  Canada  to  her  empire.  In 
1752  Franklin,  who  was  now  a  member  of 
the  legislature,  was  sent,  together  with  the 
speaker  of  the  Assembly,  to  confer  with  the 
Indians  of  Ohio  ;  and  if  no  important  re 
sults  came  from  the  conference  it  at  least 
helped  to  give  Franklin  an  insight  into 
Indian  character  such  as  few  men  possessed. 
Two  years  later,  when  actual  war  became 
imminent,  he  was  chosen  one  of  the  commis 
sioners  from  Pennsylvania  to  meet  those  of 
the  other  colonies  at  Albany  and  consult  on 
measures  of  common  defense.  Any  one 
might  see  that  the  colonies  would  be  stronger 
united  than  separated,  and  several  of  the 
commissioners  came  prepared  with  proposals 
of  union.  Franklin  had  already  published 
in  his  "  Gazette  "  an  article  on  the  subject, 
to  which  he  had  added  a  wood-cut  show 
ing  a  snake  cut  in  thirteen  pieces  with  the 
device  JOIN  OR  DIE.  On  the  way  to 
Albany  he  had  drawn  up  a  plan  of  union 


80  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

which  pleased  the  Congress,  and  which  re 
sembled  very  much  the  form  of  union  after 
wards  adopted  during  the  Revolution ;  but 
as  Franklin  observes,  "  Its  fate  was  singu 
lar  ;  the  Assemblies  did  not  adopt  it,  as  they 
all  thought  there  was  too  much  prerogative 
in  it ;  and  in  England  it  was  judged  to  have 
too  much  of  the  democratic."  Instead  of 
this  scheme  the  London  Board  of  Trade  de 
vised  a  plan  of  their  own  which,  besides 
other  objectionable  features,  involved  the  de 
plorable  principle  of  taxing  the  colonies 
without  their  consent.  It  is  interesting  to 
find  Franklin  the  next  winter  in  Boston  dis 
cussing  the  improprieties  of  this  plan  with 
Governor  Shirley,  and  it  has  been  truly  ob 
served  that  his  arguments  include  almost  all 
that  was  later  brought  out  when  the  question 
of  taxation  without  representation  became  a 
burning  question. 

In  1755  we  find  Franklin  connected  with 
an  event  which  first  brought  Washington 
into  prominence.  That  was  the  year  of 
Braddock's  unfortunate  campaign,  and  the 
Assembly  of  Pennsylvania,  which  had  re- 


THE  SCIENTIST  81 

fused  to  grant  money  for  the  war  and  now 
feared  that  Braddock  would  take  revenge 
by  ravaging  the  colony,  sent  Franklin  into 
Maryland  to  consult  with  the  general  and 
pacify  him  if  possible.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  Franklin  succeeded.  By  cunning  ad 
vertisements  and  appeals  to  the  farmers  in 
Pennsylvania  he  got  wagons  and  teams  for 
the  army ;  but  to  do  this  he  had  to  pledge 
himself  for  a  considerable  sum  of  money,  his 
own  credit  being  higher  than  that  of  the 
government,  and  after  the  general  rout  in 
which  many  of  the  wagons  and  horses  were 
lost  he  was  compelled  to  pay  out  large  sums 
of  money  for  which  he  was  never  entirely 
reimbursed.  He  also  persuaded  the  Assem 
bly  of  Pennsylvania  to  provide  the  younger 
officers  of  the  regiment  with  horses  and 
stores  for  the  campaign,  although  to  Wash 
ington,  as  we  know,  all  this  accumulation  of 
provisions  for  such  an  expedition  see'med  no 
better  than  a  nuisance.  Franklin',  too,  had 
his  fears,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  caution 
Braddock  against  the  ambuscades  of  the 
Indians.  Braddock  smiled  at  his  ignorance, 


82  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

and  replied :  "  These  savages  may  indeed 
be  a  formidable  enemy  to  your  raw  Ameri 
can  militia,  but  upon  the  king's  regular  and 
disciplined  troops,  sir,  it  is  impossible  they 
should  make  any  impression."  Franklin 
tells  us  he  was  conscious  of  the  impropriety 
of  disputing  with  a  military  man  in  matters 
of  his  profession,  and  said  no  more.  The 
story  of  Braddock's  defeat  is  only  too  well 
known;  but  to  Franklin  at  least  the  cam 
paign  brought  some  profit.  When  later  he 
went  to  England  he  found  that  the  gen 
eral's  account  of  his  intelligence  and  gener 
osity  had  added  considerably  to  his  reputa 
tion. 

The  failure  of  the  expedition  had  left  the 
western  frontier  open  to  the  savage  raids  of 
the  Indians,  and  Pennsylvania,  owing  to  her 
unprotected  condition,  suffered  more  than 
the  other  colonies.  Franklin  came  to  the 
rescue  with  a  bill  to  raise  volunteers  which 
was  carried  through  the  Assembly ;  troops 
were  quickly  organized,  and  the  philosopher 
was  himself  appointed  general.  He  was 
two  months  in  the  field  and  conducted  him- 


THE  SCIENTIST  83 

self  with  admirable  prudence,  although  he 
did  not  undergo  the  test  of  actual  fighting. 
After  that  time  he  was  recalled  by  the 
governor  to  Philadelphia,  for  the  Assembly 
was  about  to  meet  and  his  services  were 
needed  at  home. 

The  old  trouble  between  the  proprietary 
governor  and  the  Assembly  had  now  reached 
an  acute  stage.  The  two  sons  of  William 
Penn,  into  whose  hands  the  colony  had  de 
scended,  pursued  a  narrow  and  selfish  policy, 
forcing  the  governor  to  veto  every  bill  for 
raising  money  unless  the  estates  owned  by 
the  proprietors  were  exempted  from  taxa 
tion.  From  the  beginning  Franklin  had 
stood  with  the  popular  party  in  opposing 
these  regulations,  yet  curiously  enough  had 
always  been  a  favorite  with  the  governors. 
These  magistrates  were  bound  to  follow  the 
proprietors'  will  under  penalty  of  being  re 
called  ;  but  on  the  other  hand  their  salary 
was  dependent  on  the  pleasure  of  the  As 
sembly,  and  they  may  well  have  clung  to  a 
wise  and  tolerant  intermediary  like  Frank 
lin.  Nothing,  however,  could  now  allay  the 


84  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

hostile  feelings.  The  Assembly  voted  money 
for  immediate  defense  under  the  conditions 
imposed,  but  at  the  same  time  declared  that 
the  measure  was  not  to  be  held  as  a  prece 
dent  for  the  future  ;  and  Franklin  was  sent 
to  England  to  treat  with  the  proprietaries  in 
person,  and  if  necessary  with  the  Crown. 


FIEST  AND   SECOND   MISSIONS    TO    ENGLAND 

FKANKLIN  reached  London  July  27, 1757, 
when  he  was  fifty^ne  years  old.  He  re 
mained  in  England  five  years,  and  during 
that  period  his  life  was  one  of  manifold 
interests  and  vexations.  His  business  with 
the  Penns  first  engaged  his  attention  ;  but 
from  those  stubborn  gentlemen  he  got  no 
thing  but  insolence  and  delays.  After  much 
manoeuvring  the  dispute  was  brought  before 
a  committee  of  the  Privy  Council,  where  the 
Pennsylvania  Assembly  through  its  repre 
sentative  virtually  won  its  case.  The  pro 
prietary  estates  were  made  subject  to  taxa- 
tion^  and  this  bone  of  contention  was  for  a 
time  removed.  It  was  indeed  a  great  vic 
tory  for  the  Philadelphia  printer ;  but  per 
haps  its  chief  value  was  the  training  it  gave 
him  for  the  more  important  diplomatic  nego 
tiations  that  were  to  come  later.  There  was 


86  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

that  in  Franklin's  nature  which  made  him 
an  ideal  diplomatist.  Under  the  utmost 
candor  and  simplicity  he  concealed  a  pene 
tration  into  character  and  a  skill  in  using 
legitimate  chicanery  that  rarely  missed  their 
mark.  Then,  too,  he  was  persistent :  what 
he  undertook  to  do  he  never  left  until  it  was 
done.  Though  far  from  being  an  orator,  he 
wielded  a  pen  that  for  clearness  and  logical 
pointedness  has  scarcely  been  surpassed,  and 
his  powers  of  irony  and  sarcasm  were  worthy 
of  Swift  himself. 

Among  other  subjects  which  engaged 
Franklin's  pen  at  this  time  was  a  question 
of  vital  interest,  as  he  thought,  to  the  em 
pire.  Under  the  masterly  guidance  of  the 
great  Pitt,  England  had  come  out  victorious 
in  the  struggle  with  France,  and  the  govern 
ment  was  now  debating  whether  Canada 
should  be  retained  or  given  back  to  the 
French.  The  chief  argument  for  surrender 
ing  the  province  was  ominous  of  the  future. 
"  A  neighbor  that  keeps  us  in  some  awe  is 
not  always  the  worst  of  neighbors.  ...  If  we 
acquire  all  Canada,  we  shall  soon  find  North 


MISSIONS   TO  ENGLAND  87 

America  itself  too  powerful  and  too  populous 
to  be  governed  by  us  at  a  distance."  To 
this  timid  reasoning,  which  was  attributed 
to  William  Burke,  Franklin  replied  in  a 
pamphlet,  discussing  the  whole  question  with 
the  utmost  acumen,  displaying  the  future 
greatness  of  the  empire  in  America,  and  de 
nying  that  the  colonies  would  ever  revolt. 
Touching  this  last  apprehension  he  says : 
"  There  are  so  many  causes  that  must  oper 
ate  to  prevent  it  that  I  will  venture  to  say 
a  union  amongst  them  for  such  a  purpose  is 
not  merely  improbable,  it  is  impossible.  .  .  . 
When  I  say  such  a  union  is  impossible,  I 
mean  without  the  most  grievous  tyranny  and 
oppression.  .  .  .  The  waves  do  not  rise  but 
when  the  wind  blows.  .  .  .  What  such  an 
administration  as  the  Duke  of  Alva's  in  the 
Netherlands  might  produce,  I  know  not ;  but 
this,  I  think,  I  have  a  right  to  deem  impos 
sible."  Strange  words  to  come  from  Frank 
lin  in  those  days ;  but  it  is  thought  they  were 
of  considerable  influence  in  the  final  decision 
of  the  question.  Franklin  indeed  was  always 
fond  of  prophesying  the  future  greatness  of 


88  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

America,  and  again  in  the  diplomatic  debates 
after  the  revolutionary  war  he  long  insisted 
that  Canada  should  be  severed  from  Eng 
land  and  joined  to  the  thirteen  States. 

But  our  philosopher  had  much  to  occupy 
him  besides  politics.  He  had  taken  lodgings 
at  No.  7  Craven  Street  with  a  Mrs.  Ste 
venson,  in  whom  and  in  whose  daughter  he 
found  warm  and  congenial  friends.  His  cor 
respondence  with  "  Dear  Polly,"  the  daugh 
ter,  contains  some  of  his  most  entertaining 
letters ;  /  and  he  even  planned,  but  unsuc 
cessfully,  to  make  her  the  wife  of  his  son 
William.  His  fame  as  a  scientist  had  pre 
ceded  him,  and  introduced  him  into  the  soci 
ety  of  many  distinguished  men  in  England 
and  Scotland,  among  whom  his  genial  nature 
freely  expanded.  And  nothing  could  stop 
the  activity  of  his  mind,  not  even  sickness. 
For  eight  weeks  he  struggled  with  a  fever,  but 
the  letter  to  his  wife  conveying  the  story  of 
his  illness  reads  as  if  he  were  almost  willing 
to  undergo  such  an  experience  for  the 
opportunity  of  studying  pathology  which  it 
offered. 


MISSIONS  TO  ENGLAND  89 

At  last  he  was  ready  to  return  home. 
The  University  of  St.  Andrews  had  con 
ferred  on  him  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws, 
and  afterwards  Oxford  had  done  the  same. 
He  had  succeeded  in  his  mission,  his  son  had 
been  appointed  governor  of  New  Jersey,  and 
he  looked  forward  to  a  life  of  honorable  ease 
in  his  adopted  city.  Just  before  sailing  he 
wrote  to  Lord  Kames  :  "I  am  now  waiting 
here  only  for  a  wind  to  waft  me  to  America, 
but  cannot  leave  this  happy  island  and  my 
friends  in  it  without  extreme  regret,  though 
I  am  going  to  a  country  and  a  people  that  I 
love.  I  am  going  from  the  old  world  to  the 
new,  and  I  fancy  I  feel  like  those  who  are 
leaving  this  world  for  the  next.  Grief  at 
the  parting,  fear  of  the  passage,  hope  of  the 
future,  —  these  different  passions  all  affect 
their  minds  at  once,  and  these  have  tendered 
me  down  exceedingly." 

Peace  had  come  to  Europe  in  1763,  but 
not  to  America.  The  Indians,  who  had  been 
aroused  by  European  intrigue,  were  not  so 
easily  pacified,  and  western  Pennsylvania 
especially  continued  to  suffer  from  their 


90  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

ravages.  The  men  of  the  frontier  banded 
together  for  retaliation,  and  unfortunately 
their  revenge  equaled  the  brutality  of  the 
red  savages.  Religious  odium  added  bitter 
ness  to  the  passions.  The  Scotch-Irish  Pres 
byterians  of  the  west,  enraged  at  the  supine- 
ness  of  the  eastern  Quakers,  made  the  ex 
termination  of  the  Indians  a  point  of  reli 
gion.  The  horror  reached  its  climax  when 
the  good  people  of  Paxton  in  cold  blood  mas 
sacred  twenty  helpless  and  innocent  Indians, 
and  then  with  a  large  following  marched 
towards  Philadelphia  with  the  avowed  pur 
pose  of  murdering  in  the  name  of  an  angry 
God  one  hundred  and  forty  peaceful  Mora 
vian  Indians.  The  governor,  a  nephew  of  the 
proprietaries,  came,  as  all  men  did,  to  Frank 
lin  in  his  perplexity  ;  he  even  lodged  in 
Franklin's  house,  and  concerted  with  him 
hourly  on  the  means  of  repelling  the  invaders. 
The  "  Paxton  boys  "  had  reached  German- 
town.  The  city  was  in  a  panic,  and  there  was 
no  time  to  lose.  Franklin  first  got  together 
a  regiment  of  militia,  and  then,  with  three 
other  gentlemen,  went  out  to  Germantown 


MISSIONS  TO  ENGLAND  91 

to  remonstrate  with  the  fanatics.  His  mis 
sion  was  successful,  and  the  insurrection  was 
quelled ;  but  Franklin  himself  had  gained 
many  enemies  by  his  action.  The  people 
were  largely  in  favor  of  the  Paxton  rioters  ; 
and  the  governor,  now  relieved  of  his  im 
mediate  fears,  made  an  infamous  proclama 
tion  setting  a  price  upon  Indian  scalps.  A 
strong  coalition  was  formed  against  Frank 
lin  ;  to  the  enmity  of  the  proprietary  party 
was  now  added  the  distrust  of  the  people. 

Just  at  this  time  the  old  trouble  between 
the  governor  and  the  Assembly  broke  out 
more  virulently.  Despite  the  decision  of  the 
London  Council,  the  governor  vetoed  an  im 
portant  bill  because  the  proprietary  estates 
were  not  exempted  from  taxation.  An  an 
gry  debate  arose  in  the  Assembly  as  to 
whether  they  should  petition  the  king  to 
withdraw  Pennsylvania  from  the  proprie 
taries  and  make  it  a  crown  colony.  Frank 
lin  took  an  active  part  in  this  contest,  and 
threw  all  the  weight  of  his  authority  in  favor 
of  the  petition;  but  in  the  election  which 
followed  in  1764  the  combination  of  the 


92  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

aristocrats,  who  sided  with  the  proprietaries, 
and  of  the  fanatics,  who  favored  the  Paxton 
uprising,  was  too  strong  for  him,  and  he  was 
not  returned.  After  a  stormy  debate,  how 
ever,  the  Assembly  adopted  the  petition ; 
and  Franklin,  despite  the  bitter  personal 
attacks  of  John  Dickinson,  was  chosen  as 
agent  to  carry  the  request  to  England. 

The  petition  was  not  allowed,  and  Penn 
sylvania  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  pro 
prietaries  until  it  became  an  independent 
state.  But  other  questions,  far  more  im 
portant  than  the  local  difficulties  of  any 
one  colony,  were  to  occupy  Franklin's  and 
the  other  commissioners'  time.  Franklin 
was  in  England  from  December,  1764, 
until  March  of  1775,  and  during  these 
ten  years  was  busily  engaged  in  support 
ing  the  colonies  in  their  unequal  struggle 
against  the  British  Parliament.  He  was 
the  accredited  representative  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  Georgia,  New  Jersey,  and  Massachu 
setts,  and  before  the  government  and  the 
people  of  England  stood  as  the  champion  of 
the  whole  province.  Every  one  knows  the 


.    MISSIONS   TO   ENGLAND  93 

nature  of  the  acts  which  finally  created  a 
new  empire  in  the  West,  —  the  Stamp  Act, 
the  duty  on  tea,  the  Boston  Port  bill.  Their 
very  names  still  stir  the  patriotic  blood  of 
America.  The  principle  at  issue  was  clearly 
announced  in  the  battle  cry,  "  No  taxation 
without  representation."  Franklin  was  a 
stanch  advocate  of  the  American  claims,  and 
threw  all  the  weight  of  his  personal  influence 
and  of  his  eloquent  pen  into  the  work.  But 
in  one  respect  he  seems  to  have  been  de 
ceived  :  during  the  first  years  of  his  mission 
he  held  Parliament  responsible  for  all  the 
tyrannical  measures  against  the  colonies,  and 
looked  upon  the  king  as  their  natural  pro 
tector.  It  was  a  feeling  common  among 
Americans  who  wished  to  preserve  their  alle 
giance  to  the  empire  while  protesting  against 
the  authority  of  the  laws.  Even  as  late  as 
1771  he  could  write  these  words  about 
George  III :  "  I  can  scarcely  conceive  a 
king  of  better  dispositions,  of  more  exem 
plary  virtues,  or  more  truly  desirous  of  pro 
moting  the  welfare  of  his  subjects."  When 
at  last  the  bigoted  character  of  that  sover- 


94  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

eign  was  fully  revealed  to  him,  he  despaired 
utterly  of  reconciliation  with  the  mother 
country. 

Franklin's  labors  may  well  be  portrayed 
in  two  dramatic  incidents :  his  examination 
before  Parliament  in  1766,  and  the  so-called 
Privy  Council  outrage  in  1774. 

After  the  passage  of  the  Stamp  Act, 
Franklin  wrote  to  a  friend :  "  Depend  upon 
it,  my  good  neighbor,  I  took  every  step  in  my 
power  to  prevent  the  passing  of  the  Stamp 
Act.  Nobody  could  be  more  concerned  and 
interested  than  myself  to  oppose  it  sincerely 
and  heartily.  .  .  .  We  might  as  well  have 
hindered  the  sun's  setting.  That  we  could 
not  do.  But  since  it  is  down,  my  friend, 
and  it  may  be  long  before  it  rises  again,  let 
us  make  as  good  a  night  of  it  as  we  can. 
We  can  still  light  candles.  Frugality  and 
industry  will  go  a  great  way  towards  indem 
nifying  us.  Idleness  and  pride  tax  with  a 
heavier  hand  than  kings  and  parliaments. 
If  we  can  get  rid  of  the  former,  we  may 
easily  bear  the  latter."  But  Franklin's 
philosophical  habit  of  accepting  the  inevi- 


MISSIONS   TO   ENGLAND  95 

table,  —  a  habit  which  for  a  time  brought 
him  the  hostility  of  such  strenuous  patriots 
as  the  Adamses,  —  did  not  prevent  him  from 
doing  all  in  his  power  to  further  the  repeal 
of  that  act  when  the  matter  was  again  taken 
up  by  Parliament.  Nor  did  America  lack 
friends  in  Parliament  itself,  and  these  gen 
tlemen  now  arranged  that  Franklin  should 
give  testimony  before  the  bar  of  the  House. 

In  the  examination  which  followed,  Frank 
lin  showed  the  fullness  of  his  knowledge  and 
the  keenness  of  his  wit  better  perhaps  than 
in  any  other  act  of  his  life.  It  is  impossible  to 
give  at  length  the  replies  with  which  he  aided 
the  friends  of  repeal  and  baffled  its  foes  ; 
but  a  few  of  his  answers  may  indicate  the 
nature  of  all. 

Q.  "  What  was  the  temper  of  America 
towards  Great  Britian  before  the  year 
1763?" 

A.  "  The  best  in  the  world.  They  sub 
mitted  willingly  to  the  government  of  the 
Crown,  and  paid  in  their  courts  obedience 
to  acts  of  Parliament.  .  .  .  They  had  not 
only  a  respect,  but  an  affection  for  Great 


96  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

Britain ;  for  its  laws,  its  customs,  and  man 
ners  ;  and  even  a  fondness  for  its  fashions, 
that  greatly  increased  the  commerce.  Na 
tives  of  Britain  were  always  treated  with 
particular  regard;  to  be  an  Old  England 
man  was,  of  itself,  a  character  of  some  re 
spect,  and  gave  a  kind  of  rank  among  us." 

Q.  "  What  is  their  temper  now  ?  " 

A.    "  Oh,  very  much  altered." 

Q.  "  How  would  the  Americans  receive  a 
future  tax,  imposed  on  the  same  principle  as 
the  Stamp  Act  ?  " 

A.  "  Just  as  they  do  the  Stamp  Act ; 
they  would  not  pay  it." 

Q.  "  Would  the  colonists  prefer  to  forego 
the  collection  of  debts  by  legal  process  rather 
than  use  stamped  paper  ?  " 

A.  "I  can  only  judge  what  other  people 
will  think  and  how  they  will  act  by  what  I 
feel  within  myself.  I  have  a  great  many 
debts  due  to  me  in  America,  and  I  had 
rather  they  should  remain  unrecoverable  by 
any  law  than  submit  to  the  Stamp  Act. 
They  will  be  debts  of  honor." 

The  examination  was  a  complete  success ; 


MISSIONS   TO  ENGLAND  97 

not  even  the  Tories  could  object  to  it,  and 
to  Burke  it  seemed  like  the  examination  of 
a  master  by  a  parcel  of  schoolboys.  A  few 
days  later  the  repeal  was  carried. 

But  the  relief  was  only  temporary,  and 
Parliament  soon  returned  to  its  high-handed 
measures  of  repression.  One  day ,  in  the 
midst  of  the  contest  Franklin  was  talking 
with  a  friendly  member  of  Parliament  and 
inveighing  against  the  violence  of  the  govern 
ment  towards  Boston.  The  Englishman  re-^ 
plied  that  these  measures  of  repression  did 
not  originate  in  England,  and  to  prove  his 
assertion  placed  in  Franklin's  hands  a  packet 
of  letters  written  by  Hutchinson,  governor 
of  Massachusetts,  and  others  to  a  member 
of  Parliament  with  the  intention  of  reaching 
the  ears  of  Lord  Grenville.  These  letters, 
written  by  native-born  Americans,  advised 
the  quartering  of  troops  on  Boston,  advo 
cated  the  making  of  judges  and  governors 
dependent  on  England  for  their  salaries,  and 
were  full  of  such  sentiments  as  that  "  there 
must  be  an  abridgment  of  what  are  called 
English  liberties."  Franklin  by  permission 


98  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

sent  them  to  Boston,  where  they  naturally 
raised  a  furor  of  indignation.  A  petition 
was  immediately  sent  over  to  have  Governor 
Hutchinson  removed  from  office,  but  for  a 
while  government  took  no  action.  After  a 
time  the  letters  got  into  the  London  news 
papers  with  the  most  deplorable  result. 
One  Thomas  Whately,  brother  of  the  gentle 
man  to  whom  they  had  been  addressed,  was 
accused  of  purloining  the  letters  and  send 
ing  them  to  America.  This  caused  a  duel, 
and  a  second  duel  was  about  to  be  fought 
when  Franklin  published  a  note  in  the 
"  Public  Advertiser  "  avowing  that  the  letters 
had  not  passed  through  Mr.  Whately's  hands, 
that  he  himself  was  responsible  for  sending 
them  to  Boston,  and  that  no  blame  could  be 
attached  to  the  action  as  the  letters  were 
really  of  a  public  nature.  The  Tories  now 
saw  their  opportunity  to  attack  Franklin. 
The  petition  for  removing  Hutchinson  was 
taken  up  by  the  Committee  for  Plantation 
Affairs,  and  Franklin  was  summoned  to 
appear  before  them.  Wedderburn,  the 
king's  solicitor-general,  was  there  to  speak 


MISSIONS  TO  ENGLAND  99 

for  Hutchinson,  and  Franklin,  having  no 
counsel,  had  the  proceedings  delayed  for 
three  weeks. 

On  the  appointed  day  the  Council  met  in 
a  building  called  the  Cockpit,  and  Franklin 
appeared  before  them.  The  room  was  fur 
nished  with  a  long  table  down  the  middle,  at 
which  the  lords  sat.  At  one  end  of  the 
room  was  a  fireplace,  and  in  a  recess  at  one 
side  of  the  chimney  Franklin  stood  during 
the  whole  meeting.  His  advocates  spoke, 
but  without  much  effect,  and  the  defense  of 
Hutchinson  was  then  taken  up  by  Wedder- 
burn.  But  instead  of  arguing  the  point  at 
issue,  Wedderburn  made  it  the  occasion  for 
delivering,  much  to  the  delight  of  the  Tory 
lords  present,  a  long  and  utterly  unjustified 
tirade  against  Franklin.  With  thunderous 
voice  and  violent  beating  of  his  fist  on  the 
cushion  before  him,  he  denounced  Frank 
lin  as  the  "  prime  mover  of  this  whole  con 
trivance  against  his  majesty's  two  gover 
nors."  Although  the  letters  had  been  given 
to  Franklin  for  the  express  purpose  of  hav 
ing  them  conveyed  to  America,  Wedder- 


100  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

burn  accused  him  of  base  treachery  ;  turn 
ing  to  the  committee  he  said  :  "  I  hope,  my 
Lords,  you  will  mark  and  brand  the  man, 
for  the  honor  of  this  country,  of  Europe, 
and  of  mankind.  Private  correspondence 
has  hitherto  been  held  sacred,  in  tunes  of 
the  greatest  party  rage,  not  only  in  politics 
but  religion."  "  He  has  forfeited  all  the 
respect  of  societies  and  of  men.  Into  what 
companies  will  he  hereafter  go  with  an  un 
embarrassed  face,  or  the  honest  intrepidity 
of  virtue?  Men  will  watch  him  with  a 
jealous  eye ;  they  will  hide  their  papers 
from  him,  and  lock  up  their  escritoirs.  He 
will  henceforth  esteem  it  a  libel  to  be  called 
a  man  of  letters ;  homo  TRIUM  litterarum 
(i.  e.,/w,  thief)  !  "  "  But  he  not  only  took 
away  the  letters  from  one  brother ;  but  kept 
himself  concealed  till  he  nearly  occasioned 
the  murder  of  the  other.  It  is  impossible 
to  read  his  account,  expressive  of  the  coolest 
and  most  deliberate  malice,  without  horror." 
"  Amidst  these  tragical  events,  of  one  person 
nearly  murdered,  of  another  answerable  for 
the  issue,  of  a  worthy  governor  hurt  in  his 


MISSIONS   TO  ENGLAND  101 

dearest  interests,  the  fate  of  America  in  sus 
pense  ;  here  is  a  man,  who,  with  the  utmost 
insensibility  of  remorse,  stands  up  and  avows 
himself  the  author  of  all.  I  can  compare  it 
only  to  Zanga,  in  Dr.  Young's  "  Revenge :"  — 

" '  Know  then  't  was  —  I ; 

I  forged  the  letter,  I  disposed  the  picture ; 
I  hated,  I  despised,  and  I  destroy.' 

I  ask,  my  Lords,  whether  the  revengeful 
temper  attributed,  by  poetic  fiction  only,  to 
the  bloody  African  is  not  surpassed  by  the 
coolness  and  apathy  of  the  wily  Ameri 
can?" 

The  picture  of  Franklin  standing  unmoved 
under  this  torrent  of  abuse  is,.  I  think,  the 
most  dramatic  incident  of  his  life.  It  was 
a  victory  of  glorious  endurance ;  it  was  the 
crown  of  unmerited  infamy  which  was  needed 
to  give  depth  of  interest  to  his  successful 
career.  An  eyewitness  thus  described  the 
scene  :  "  Dr.  Franklin's  face  was  directed 
towards  me,  and  I  had  a  full,  uninterrupted 
view  of  it,  and  his  person,  during  the  whole 
time  in  which  Mr.  Wedderburn  spoke. 
The  Doctor  was  dressed  in  a  full  dress  suit 


102  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

of  spotted  Manchester  velvet,  and  stood  con 
spicuously  erect  without  the  smallest  move 
ment  of  any  part  of  his  body.  The  muscles 
of  his  face  had  been  previously  composed, 
so  as  to  afford  a  placid,  tranquil  expression 
of  countenance,  and  he  did  not  suffer  the 
slightest  alteration  of  it  to  appear  during 
the  continuance  of  the  speech,  in  which  he 
was  so  harshly  and  improperly  treated.  In 
short,  to  quote  the  words  which  he  employed 
concerning  himself  on  another  occasion,  he 
kept  his  '  countenance  as  immovable  as  if 
his  features  had  been  made  of  wood.'' ' 

Fortunately,  to  sustain  him  in  these  trials, 
Franklin  had  a  cheerful  home  and  the 
society  of  the  best  men  in  England.  He 
was  living  at  the  old  house  on  Craven  Street, 
where  Mrs.  Stevenson  did  all  in  her  power 
to  make  him  forget  that  he  was  an  exile. 
Indeed,  were  it  not  that  Mrs.  Franklin  had 
an  unconquerable  dread  of  crossing  the 
water,  it  is  quite  possible  that  our  philoso 
pher  might  have  carried  his  family  to  Eng 
land  and  lived  permanently  among  his  new 
friends ;  and  in  estimating  the  services  of 


MISSIONS   TO  ENGLAND  103 

Franklin  to  America  we  should  never  forget 
to  give  due  credit  to  his  loyal  wife  who 
stayed  quietly  at  home,  managing  his  affairs 
for  him  in  Philadelphia  and  keeping  warm 
his  attachment  for  his  adopted  city.  Be 
sides  the  eminent  statesmen,  such  as  Pitt 
and  Burke,  with  whom  Franklin's  business 
brought  him  naturally  in  contact,  he  asso 
ciated  much  with  liberal  clergymen,  —  with 
Priestley  particularly,  the  discoverer  of 
oxygen,  and  with  the  family  of  the  good 
Bishop  of  St.  Asaph's,  at  whose  house  he 
had  almost  a  second  home.  To  one  of  the 
bishop's  daughters  he  sent  the  inimitable 
epitaph  on  the  squirrel  Mungo  which  he  had 
given  her  as  a  present  from  America.  The 
influence  for  good  is  almost  incalculable 
which  Franklin  thus  exercised  by  the  noble 
type  of  American  character  he  displayed  to 
the  liberal  party  in  England. 

Nor  did  he  ever  lose  an  opportunity  to 
accomplish  what  he  could  with  the  pen.  At 
one  time,  to  lay  bare  the  suicidal  policy  of 
the  government,  he  published  in  a  news 
paper  a  satirical  squib  quite  in  the  vein  of 


104  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

Dean  Swift,  entitled  "  Kules  for  reducing  a 
Great  Empire  to  a  Small  One."  The  open 
ing  sentences  were  as  follows  :  "  An  ancient 
sage  valued  himself  upon  this,  that,  though 
he  could  not  fiddle,  he  knew  how  to  make  a 
great  city  of  a  little  one.  The  science  that 
I,  a  modern  simpleton,  am  about  to  com 
municate,  is  the  very  reverse ;  "  and  with 
this  introduction  the  author  proceeds  to  give 
a  detailed  account  of  the  treatment  of  the 
colonies  by  Parliament. 

In  another  paper  Franklin  reduced  cer 
tain  arguments  of  the  ministry  to  the  absurd. 
This  was  a  pretended  "  Edict  of  the  King  of 
Prussia,"  in  which  Frederick  was  supposed 
to  announce  the  same  sovereignty  over  Eng 
land,  which  had  been  originally  settled  by 
Germans,  as  Parliament  now  claimed  over 
America.  Speaking  of  these  two  papers 
Franklin  says,  in  a  letter  to  his  son :  "  I 
sent  you  one  of  the  first,  but  could  not  get 
enough  of  the  second  to  spare  you  one, 
though  my  clerk  went  the  next  morning  to 
the  printer's,  and  wherever  they  were  sold. 
...  I  am  not  suspected  as  the  author,  except 


MISSIONS  TO  ENGLAND  105 

by  one  or  two  friends  ;  and  have  heard  the 
latter  spoken  of  in  the  highest  terms,  as 
the  keenest  and  severest  piece  that  has  ap 
peared  here  a  long  time.  Lord  Mansfield, 
I  hear,  said  of  it,  that  it  was  very  ABLE 
and  very  AKTFUL  indeed  ;  and  would  do  mis 
chief  by  giving  here  a  bad  impression  of  the 
measures  of  government ;  and  in  the  colonies, 
by  encouraging  them  in  their  contumacy.  .  .  . 
What  made  it  the  more  noticed  here  was, 
that  people  in  reading  it  were,  as  the  phrase 
is,  taken  in,  till  they  had  got  half  through 
it,  and  imagined  it  a  real  edict,  to  which  mis 
take  I  suppose  the  King  of  Prussia's  char 
acter  must  have  contributed.  [I  was  down 
at  Lord  Le  Despencer's,  when  the  post 
brought  that  day's  papers.  Mr.  Whitehead 
was  there,  too  (Paul  Whitehead,  the  author 
of  "Manners  "),  who  runs  early  through  all 
the  papers,  and  tells  the  company  what  he 
finds  remarkable.  He  had  them  in  another 
room,  and  we  were  chatting  in  the  break 
fast  parlor,  when  he  came  running  in  to  us, 
out  of  breath,  with  the  paper  in  his  hand. 
'  Here ! '  says  he,  '  here  's  news  for  ye  I 


106  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

Here 's  the  King  of  Prussia,  claiming  a 
right  to  this  kingdom !  '  All  stared,  and  I 
as  much  as  anybody;  and  he  went  on  to 
read  it.  When  he  had  read  two  or  three 
paragraphs,  a  gentleman  present  said, 
4  Damn  his  impudence,  I  dare  say  we  shall 
hear  by  next  post,  that  he  is  upon  his  march 
with  one  hundred  thousand  men  to  back  this.' 
Whitehead,  who  is  very  shrewd,  soon  after 
began  to  smoke  it,  and  looking  in  my  face, 
said,  '  I  '11  be  hanged  if  this  is  not  some  of 
your  American  jokes  upon  us.'  The  read 
ing  went  on,  and  ended  with  abundance  of 
laughing,  and  a  general  verdict  that  it  was 
a  fair  hit." 

After  the  Privy  Council  outrage  there 
was  very  little  for  Franklin  to  do.  Lord 
Chatham  consulted  with  him  before  intro 
ducing  in  Parliament  a  liberal  bill  for  con 
ciliating  the  colonies,  and  Franklin  himself 
was  present  in  the  House  of  Lords  when 
the  old  statesman,  despite  the  protests  of 
his  gout,  plead  for  fairer  measures.  It  may 
very  well  be  that  if  these  troubles  had  oc 
curred  in  Chatham's  vigorous  days  he  might 


MISSIONS  TO  ENGLAND  107 

have  been  able  to  preserve  the  integrity 
of  the  empire.  But  now  he  was  crippled 
by  the  gout  and  debarred  from  active  life  ; 
and  in  the  interesting  "  Dialogue  between 
Franklin  and  the  Gout"  the  philosopher 
might  have  retorted  upon  that  exacting 
lady  the  mischief  she  had  done  his  people 
by  laming  Pitt.  Again  Franklin  had  to 
stand  the  bitter  denunciation  of  the  Tories, 
while  Lord  Sandwich  held  him  up  as  "  one 
of  the  bitterest  and  most  mischievous  ene 
mies  this  country  had  ever  known  ;  "  but  he 
also  had  the  satisfaction  of  hearing  a  noble 
eulogy  of  his  character  pronounced  by  the 
great  Chatham. 

•N  Then,  after  a  good  deal  of  secret  negotiation 
with  Lord  Howe,  Franklin  reluctantly  aban 
doned  the  situation"  and  turned  homeward. 
His  last  day  in  London  was  passed  with  Dr. 
Priestley,  who  has  left  an  interesting  record 
of  their  conversation.  He  says  of  Franklin 
that  "  the  unity  of  the  British  empire  in  all 
its  parts  was  a  favorite  idea  of  his.  He  used 
to  compare  it  to  a  beautiful  china  vase,  which, 
if  ever  broken,  could  never  be  put  together 


108  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

again ;  and  so  great  an  admirer  was  lie  of 
the  British  constitution  that  he  said  he  saw 
no  inconvenience  from  its  being  extended 
over  a  great  part  of  the  globe.  With  these 
sentiments  he  left  England." 


VI 

MEMBER  OF  CONGRESS  AND  ENVOY  TO 
FRANCE 

FRANKLIN  reached  Philadelphia  May  5, 
1775  ;  and  what  a  home-coming  it  was  I 
His  wife  had  died,  and  he  was  now  to  live 
with  his  daughter  Mrs.  Bache.  The  battle 
of  Lexington  had  been  fought  while  he  was 
at  sea,  and  the  whole  country  was  in  a  fer 
ment  of  excitement.  It  was  in  regard  to  this 
battle,  it  may  be  remembered,  that  he  uttered 
one  of  his  famous  witticisms.  To  a  critic 
who  accused  the  Americans  of  cowardice  for 
firing  from  behind  stone  walls,  he  replied : 
"  I  beg  to  inquire  if  those  same  walls  had 
not  two  sides  to  them  ?" 

He  received  the  most  honorable  welcome 

home,  and  on  the  very  morning   after   his 

arrival  was  unanimously  chosen  one  of  the 

'Pennsylvania   delegates  to  the  Continental 

Congress  about  to  meet  in  Philadelphia. 


110  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

Our  philosopher,  now  seventy  years  old, 
had  come  home  to  rest,  but  found  himself 
instead  in  the  very  vortex  of  public  affairs. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Committee  of  Safety  and  a  burgess  in  the 
Assembly,  but  later  he  gave  himself  entirely 
to  Congress.  Afterwards  when  in  Paris  he 
declared  that  he  used  to  work  twelve  hours 
out  of  the  twenty-four  on  public  business. 
His  part  in  Congress  was  one  of  conciliation 
between  conflicting  interests,  —  a  role  he  was 
admirably  adapted  to  fill.  Very  early  he 
proposed,  as  he  had  done  at  Albany,  a  union 
of  the  thirteen  colonies,  but  the  times  were 
not  yet  ripe  for  such  a  measure. 

Of  the  great  act  of  this  Congress,  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  Franklin's 
share  was  small,  as  might  be  inferred  from 
the  nature  of  the  man.  He  did  indeed  serve 
with  Jefferson  and  three  others  on  the  com 
mittee  appointed  to  draft  this  document,  but, 
as  every  one  knows,  the  actual  writing  of 
the  Declaration  was  the  work  of  Jefferson. 
Franklin  is  chiefly  remembered  for  one  or 
two  witticisms  in  connection  with  the  affair. 


MEMBER   OF  CONGRESS  111 

"  We  must  be  unanimous,"  said  Hancock, 
when  it  came  to  signing  the  document,  "  there 
must  be  no  pulling  different  ways  ;  we  must 
all  hang  together."  "  Yes,"  replied  Franklin, 
"  we  must,  indeed,  all  hang  together,  or, 
most  assuredly,  we  shall  all  hang  separately." 
Over  Franklin's  manifold  occupations  we 
may  now  pass  rapidly,  for,  though  he  was 
connected  with  almost  every  prominent  trans 
action  of  the  times,  yet  he  was  not  a  true 
leader  of  the  revolutionary  movement.  He 
was  easily  the  most  illustrious  man  in  Amer 
ica,  and,  since  the  death  of  Jonathan  Ed 
wards,  the  most  intellectual ;  but  his  mind 
was  inquisitive  and  contemplative  rather  than 
aggressive,  and  rougher  hands  were  now 
needed  at  the  helm.  He  acted  as  postmaster 
for  the  colonies,  and  served  on  many  com 
mittees.  So,  for  instance,  he  went  with  John 
Adams  and  Edward  Rutledge  to  confer  with 
Lord  Howe  on  Staten  Island.  The  embassy, 
however,  came  to  nothing,  as  Lord  Howe 
utterly  refused  to  treat  with  them  as  envoys 
of  a  Congress  whose  existence  he  could  not 
acknowledge.  It  was  too  late  for  negotia- 


112  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

tions.     And  now  we  are  to  see  Franklin  in 
a  new  part. 

Of  the  great  leaders  of  the  Revolution 
each  had  his  peculiar  task.  There  was  Sam 
uel  Adams  in  Boston,  the  herald  of  division 
and  battle,  whose  office  it  was  to  make  clear 
the  mind  of  the  country  and  to  stir  up  in 
the  people  the  proper  enthusiasm ;  there 
was  Thomas  Jefferson,  imbued  with  French 
eighteenth-century  notions  of  the  rights  of 
man,  incapable  perhaps  of  distinguishing  be 
tween  theory  and  fact,  but  for  that  very 
reason  suited  to  formulate  the  national  De 
claration  of  Independence,  a  document  not 
rigorously  true  in  philosophy  but  inimitable 
as  the  battle  cry  of  freedom  and  progress ; 
there  was  Washington,  whose  military  genius, 
indomitable  will,  and  noble  solidity  of  char 
acter  were  able  to  carry  the  war  through  to 
the  end ;  and  therejwas  Franklin,  too  cool- 
headed  ever  to  have  inflamed  the  hearts  of 
the  people  with  the  inspiration  of  hope  and 
revenge,  incapable  of  uttering  political  plati 
tudes  which  could  express  tersely  the  national 
feeling,  a  lover  of  peace  and  without  the  grim 


MEMBER   OF  CONGRESS  113 

'determination  of  a  soldier,  but  still  able  in 
his  own  way  to  serve  the  state  inore  effectu 
ally  perhaps  than  any  other  man  except  the 
great  Captain  himself.  It  was  absolutely 
necessary,  both  for  actual  help  in  money  and 
arms  and  for  moral  support,  that  the  young 
nation  should  receive  recognition  abroad. 
To  win  this  recognition  was  just  the  task  of 
Franklin.  Already  ho  was  known  personally 
to  many  of  the  leading  spirits  of  England 
and  the  Continent.  The  respect  and  friend 
ship  felt  for  him  by  Burke,  Fox,  Lord  Shel- 
*burne,  Lord  Kockingham,  did  much  to  aug 
ment  the  power  of  the  opposition  in  England, 
and  on  the  Continent  the  high  reputation  of 
Franklin  as  a  philosopher  and  statesman 
contributed  largely  to  the  general  confidence 
in  the  ultimate  success  of  the  rebellion. 

The  first  really  important  communication 
from  Europe  came  to  Congress  through  Dr. 
Dubourg,  of  Paris,  who  wrote  a  long  letter 
to  Franklin,  addressing  him  as  "  My  dear 
Master,"  and  assuring  him  of  the  sympathies 
of  France.  Congress  hereupon  appointed 
Franklin,  Silas  Deane,  and  Arthur  Lee  com- 


114  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

missioners  to  Paris,  the  two  last  being  al 
ready  in  Europe. 

Before  departing  Franklin  got  together 
what  money  he  could,  "  between  three  and 
four  thousand  pounds,"  and  lent  it  to  Con 
gress  ;  he  then  sailed  with  his  two  grandsons, 
William  Temple  Franklin  and  Benjamin 
Franklin  Bache,  reaching  Paris  December 
21,  1776.  Considering  the  dangers  and 
hardships  of  the  voyage  this  was  no  light 
undertaking  for  a  man  of  his  age,  and  he 
was  in  fact  physically  exhausted  when  he 
arrived  on  the  other  side. 

Franklin  came  now  to  reap  the  fruits  of 
a  long  and  well  spent  life.  His  personal 
fame  aided  him  in  a  land  where  philosophers 
had  become  the  fashion  of  the  day,  and  as 
the  representative  of  a  people  struggling  for 
liberty  he  was  peculiarly  dear  to  the  French, 
who  were  themselves  speculating  on  such 
matters  and  preparing  for  their  own  revolu 
tion.  It  is  of  course  easy  to  exaggerate  the 
influence  of  sentiment  in  the  case.  France 
was  glad  to  encourage  America  because  the 
loss  of  the  colonies  would  weaken  the  British 


ENVOY  TO   FRANCE  115 

Empire,  and  that  was  natural ;  but  it  is,  I 
think,  a  mistake  not  to  acknowledge  the 
generous  sentiments  of  the  people  and  even 
of  the  grandees  of  the  land.  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau  had  not  been  preaching  in  vain  ; 
the  American  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  quite  in  the  drift  of  French  political 
ideas.  But  to  awaken  trust  in  a  people  who 
dwelt  in  a  far-off  wilderness  and  who  were 
commonly  esteemed  little  better  than  savages, 
the  presence  of  such  a  man  as  Franklin  was 
of  incalculable  value. 

After  a  brief  interval  M.  de  Chaumont, 
one  of  the  wealthy  Frenchmen  of  the  day, 
offered  Franklin  rooms  at  Passy  in  his  Hotel 
de  Valentinois,  and  there  our  philosopher 
fixed  his  abode,  living  in  some  style,  and 
spending  perhaps  about  thirteen  thousand 
dollars  a  year.  His  popularity  was  immediate 
and  almost  unexampled.  The  great  people 
of  France  —  philosophers,  statesmen,  titled 
noblemen,  and  fine  ladies  —  thought  it  an 
honor  to  receive  the  famous  American  ;  and 
it  is  said  that  so  great  was  his  fame  among 
the  common  people  that  the  shopkeepers 


116  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

would  run  to  their  doors  to  see  him  pass 
down  the  street.  Innumerable  pictures  were 
drawn  and  medallions  cut  of  his  figure,  until, 
as  he  wrote,  his  countenance  was  made  "  as 
well  known  as  that  of  the  moon,  so  that  he 
durst  not  do  anything  that  would  oblige  him 
to  run  away,  as  his  phiz  would  discover  him 
wherever  he  should  venture  to  show  it." 
Parton  quotes  this  interesting  account  of 
the  commissioners  from  the  Memoirs  of 
Count  Sigur :  "  Nothing  could  be  more  strik 
ing  than  .  .  .  the  almost  rustic  apparel,  the 
plain  but  firm  demeanor,  the  free  and  direct 
language,  of  the  envoys,  whose  antique  sim 
plicity  of  dress  and  appearance  seemed  to 
have  introduced  within  our  walls,  in  the 
midst  of  the  effeminate  and  servile  refine 
ment  of  the  eighteenth  century,  some  sages 
contemporary  with  Plato,  or  republicans  of 
the  age  of  Cato  and  of  Fabius.  This  unex 
pected  apparition  produced  upon  us  a  greater 
effect  in  consequence  of  its  novelty,  and  of 
its  occurring  precisely  at  the  period  when 
literature  and  philosophy  had  circulated 
amongst  us  an  unusual  desire  for  reforms, 


ENVOY  TO  FRANCE  117 

a  disposition  to  encourage  innovations,  and 
the  seeds  of  an  ardent  attachment  to  lib 
erty." 

But  life  was  not  all  roseate  for  Franklin ; 
he  and  the  other  envoys  had  plenty  of  work 
to  do.  Among  other  things  an  endless  num 
ber  of  foreign  officers  applied  to  Franklin 
for  commissions  in  the  American  army. 
Some  of  these  applicants  —  such  as  Lafayette 
and  Steuben  —  were  heartily  welcome,  and 
really  aided  the  cause ;  but  he  was  beset  by 
innumerable  others  who  would  have  been 
merely  a  burden  on  the  army.  For  men  of 
this  stamp  he  drew  up  and  actually  used 
more  than  once  a  blank  recommendation  be 
ginning  with  these  ominous  words :  "  The 
bearer  of  this,  who  is  going  to  America, 
presses  me  to  give  him  a  letter  of  recom 
mendation,  though  I  know  nothing  of  him, 
not  even  his  name.  This  may  seem  extraor 
dinary,  but  I  assure  you  it  is  not  uncom 
mon  here,"  etc.  He  was  also  kept  busy 
managing  the  affairs  of  the  small  but  active 
uayy,  which  was  largely  fitted  out  in  France, 
and  which  brought  most  of  its  prizes  into 


118  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

French  ports.  But  of  all  his  labors  the 
most  difficult  and  the  most  important  was 
the  raising  of  money  for  Congress.  Into 
the  details  of  this  exasperating  task  we  can 
not  here  enter.  Congress  was  not  wise,  and 
its  necessities  were  desperate,  and,  despite 
the  generosity  of  the  French  court,  he  had 
often  to  employ  extreme  measures  to  borrow 
money  on  doubtful  security  or  none  at  all. 

To  excite  interest  in  favor  of  the  colonies 
Franklin  wrote  several  papers,  whose  prac 
tical  ideas  of  political  liberty  were  not  with 
out  effect  in  guiding  the  French  people  on  to 
their  own  revolution.  Even  the  wit  of  "  the 
old  fox,"  as  he  was  called  in  England,  ap 
pealed  strongly  to  that  nation  of  esprit.  So, 
for  instance,  when  asked  if  a  certain  story 
of  American  defeat  told  by  Lord  Stormont, 
the  British  ambassador,  was  a  truth,  he  an 
swered  :  "  No,  monsieur,  it  is  not  a  truth ; 
it  is  only  a  Stormont."  And  straightway 
"  a  stormont "  became  the  polite  word  for  a 
lie.  Again,  when  told  that  Howe  had  taken 
Philadelphia  he  retorted  :  "I  beg  your  par 
don,  sir,  Philadelphia  has  taken  Howe." 


ENVOY  TO  FRANCE  119 

But  though  Franklin  could  maintain  his 
philosophic  calm,  and  could  even  joke  in  the 
presence  of  disaster,  yet  the  strain  on  his 
nerves  was  tremendous.  I  believe  that  only 
once  in  his  life  was  he  betrayed  into  mani 
festing  a  strong  emotion.  Mr.  Austin,  a 
messenger  from  Boston,  is  coming  with  im 
portant  news.  All  the  American  commis 
sioners,  together  with  Beaumarchais,  are  at 
Passy  waiting  his  arrival.  His  chaise  is 
heard  in  the  court,  and  they  go  out  to  meet 
him.  But  before  he  even  alights  Franklin 
cries  out,  "  Sir,  is  Philadelphia  taken  ? " 
"Yes,  sir,"  says  Austin.  It  seemed  then 
that  all  was  over.  Without  a  word  Frank 
lin  clasped  his  hands  and  turned  toward  the 
house.  "  But,  sir,  "  said  Austin,  "  I  have 
greater  news  than  that.  GENERAL  BUR- 

GOYNE  AND  HIS  WHOLE  ARMY  ARE  PRIS 
ONERS  OF  WAR  !  "  "  The  news,"  as  one  of 
the  party  afterwards  declared,  "  was  like  a 
sovereign  cordial  to  the  dying."  How  deep 
the  impression  upon  Franklin  was  we  may 
judge  from  his  gratitude  to  the  messenger. 
Mr.  Austin  relates  that  often  he  "  would 


120  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

break  from  one  of  those  musings  in  which 
it  was  his  habit  to  indulge,  and  clasping  his 
hands  together,  exclaim,  Oh,  Mr.  Austin, 
you  brought  us  glorious  news ! ' 

It  was  indeed  glorious  news.  The  result 
in  France  was  instantaneous  and  immense. 
Franklin  and  his  companions  had  long  wished 
the  court  to  acknowledge  publicly  the  inde 
pendence  of  the  United  States  and  to  make 
a  treaty  of  commerce  with  them.  The  news 
of  Burgoyne's  surrender  reached  Paris  on 
the  4th  of  December,  1777;  the  desired 
treaty  was  actually  signed  on  the  6th  of 
February  following.  Dr.  Bancroft,  who  was 
present  when  both  parties  signed  the  docu 
ment,  tells  us  that  Franklin  on  that  occasion 
wore  the  old  suit  of  Manchester  velvet  which 
he  had  worn  on  the  day  of  his  outrage  in  the 
Privy  Council,  and  which  had  been  long 
laid  aside.  It  was  apparently  a  bit  of  quaint 
and  secret  revenge  in  which  the  philosopher 
indulged  himself.  But  when  Dr.  Bancroft 
intimated  to  Franklin  his  suspicions  in  the 
matter,  the  philosopher  only  smiled,  and  said 
nothing. 


ENVOY  TO  FRANCE  121 

Several  weeks  later  the  new  treaty  was  to 
receive  formal  recognition,  and  the  Ameri 
can  commissioners  were  to  be  presented 
to  Louis  XVI  in  their  public  capacity. 
Franklin  intended  to  wear  the  regular  court 
costume  at  the  presentation,  but  was  balked 
of  his  desire.  The  costume  did  not  come  in 
time  ;  and  when  the  perruquier  brought  his 
wig  it  refused  to  sit  on  the  Doctor's  head. 
Franklin  suggested  that  the  wig  might  be 
too  small.  "Monsieur,  it  is  impossible," 
cried  the  perruquier,  and  then,  dashing  the 
wig  to  the  floor,  exclaimed,  "  No,  Monsieur ! 
—  it  is  not  the  wig  which  is  too  small ;  it 
is  your  head  which  is  too  large."  At  any 
rate  the  wig  could  not  be  worn,  and  Frank 
lin  appeared  in  his  own  gray  hair,  dressed  in 
black  velvet,  with  white  silk  stockings,  spec 
tacles  on  nose,  and  no  sword  at  his  side. 
The  king  received  the  envoys  courteously, 
saying  :  "  Gentlemen,  I  wish  the  Congress 
to  be  assured  of  my  friendship.  I  beg  leave 
also  to  observe  that  I  am  exceedingly  satis 
fied  in  particular  with  your  own  conduct 
during  your  residence  in  my  kingdom;" 


122  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

and  with  these  words  walked  out  of  the 
apartment.  Immediately  Lord  Stormont, 
the  British  ambassador,  left  Paris;  and  a 
few  days  later  M.  Gerard,  the  first  minis 
ter  of  France  to  this  country,  sailed  for 
America. 

Franklin  had  met  the  king ;  he  had  now 
to  meet  a  greater  and  more  famous  man 
than  Louis,  —  the  only  man  living  whose 
fame  was  equal  to  his  own.  Voltaire,  eighty- 
four  years  old,  feeble  in  body  but  with  intel 
lect  unconquered,  had  just  come  to  Paris 
after  his  long  exile  to  hear  the  plaudits  of 
his  countrymen,  and  to  die.  The  American 
envoys  asked  permission  to  wait  upon  the 
great  man,  and  were  received  by  Voltaire 
lying  on  his  couch.  He  quoted  a  few  lines 
from  Thomson's  "  Ode  to  Liberty,"  and  then 
began  to  talk  with  Franklin  in  English  ;  but 
his  niece,  not  understanding  that  language, 
begged  them  to  speak  in  French.  Where 
upon  Voltaire  replied  :  "  I  beg  your  pardon. 
I  have  for  a  moment  yielded  to  the  vanity  of 
showing  that  I  can  speak  in  the  language  of 
a  Franklin."  When  Dr.  Franklin  presented 


ENVOY  TO  FRANCE  123 

his  grandson,  the  old  philosopher  pronounced 
over  his  head  only  these  words :  "  God  and 
Liberty !  "  All  who  were  present  shed 
tears. 

John  Adams  tells  the  story  of  a  more 
public  meeting  between  the  two  men  at  the 
Academy  of  Sciences  :  "  Voltaire  and  Frank 
lin  were  both  present,  and  there  presently 
arose  a  general  cry  that  M.  Voltaire  and 
M.  Franklin  should  be  introduced  to  each 
other.  This  was  done,  and  they  bowed  and 
spoke  to  each  other.  This  was  no  satisfac 
tion  ;  there  must  be  something  more.  Nei 
ther  of  our  philosophers  seemed  to  divine 
what  was  wished  or  expected.  They,  how 
ever,  took  each  other  by  the  hand  ;  but  this 
was  not  enough.  The  clamor  continued 
until  the  exclamation  came  out,  c  II  f aut 
s'embrasser  a  la  Fran£aise ! ' l  The  two  aged 
actors  upon  this  great  theatre  of  philosophy 
and  frivolity  then  embraced  each  other  by 
hugging  one  another  in  their  arms  and  kiss 
ing  each  other's  cheeks,  and  then  the  tumult 
subsided.  And  the  cry  immediately  spread 

1  They  must  embrace  like  Frenchmen. 


124  BENJAMIN  FKANKLIN 

throughout  the  kingdom,  and  I  suppose  over 
all  Europe,  '  Qu'il  etait  charmant  de  voir 
embrasser  Solon  et  Sophocle  ! '  "  l 

The  mention  of  John  Adams  recalls  us  to 
the  most  disagreeable  part  of  Franklin's  ex 
perience.  During  all  his  sojourn  in  France 
he  was  subject  to  continual  and  annoying 
interference  from  his  colleagues.  Before  his 
arrival  in  Paris,  Silas  Deane  had  entered 
for  Congress  into  semi-commercial  relations 
with  the  French  government  through  the 
eccentric  and  industrious  Beaumarchais. 
Franklin  was  content  to  leave  these  affairs 
to  him,  and  did  not  at  the  time  even  know 
their  real  nature.  But  with  Arthur  Lee  it 
was  different.  Of  all  characters  in  American 
history  Lee  is  almost  the  hardest  to  endure. 
He  was  patriotic,  and  in  a  way  honest,  but 
meddlesome,  suspicious,  vain,  and  quarrel 
some  to  an  incredible  degree.  He  immedi 
ately  made  up  his  mind  that  Deane  was  pecu 
lating,  and  never  ceased  writing  accusatory 
letters  until  Congress  recalled  the  unfortu- 

1  How  charming  it  was  to  see  Solon  and  Sophocles 
embrace. 


ENVOY  TO  FRANCE  125 

nate  envoy.  All  this  time  he  was  also  acting 
toward  Franklin  in  a  manner  which  can 
only  be  described  as  insane.  He  fumed  at 
Franklin's  easy  way  of  conducting  business  ; 
his  vanity  suffered  indescribable  tortures  at 
every  mark  of  respect  paid  to  his  distin 
guished  colleague  ;  he  suspected  him  of  trea 
son  and  every  other  crime ;  and  with  his 
partisans  (whose  names  we  need  not  here 
mention)  he  wrote  voluble  letters  of  incrim- 
ination  to  Congress.  When  Silas  Deane 
was  recalled,  John  Adams  was  sent  over  to 
take  his  place,  and  for  a  while  Franklin  re 
ceived  support  from  his  new  colleague,  —  for 
Adams,  with  all  his  faults,  was  at  least 
single-hearted  in  his  patriotism.  But  their 
characters  were  too  widely  different  for  them 
to  work  easily  together  in  harness.  Adams's 
vanity  was  almost  as  great  as  Arthur  Lee's. 
The  homage  paid  to  Franklin  drove  him 
almost  into  a  frenzy  of  rage,  both  because 
he  thought  himself  overlooked  and  because 
such  homage  savored  of  aristocracy.  In 
Franklin's  catalogue  of  the  virtues  there  were 
two  which  he  could  not  claim  to  have  at- 


126  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

tained,  —  chastity  and  orderliness  ;  and  these 
two  weaknesses  now  rose  to  exact  their  pen 
alty.  Adams  could  not  believe  that  a  man 
who  had  been  lax  with  women  could  be 
honest  in  anything  else ;  Adams  was  the 
spirit  of  petty  orderliness,  and  Franklin's 
easy  ways  seemed  to  him  the  destruction  of 
all  business.  At  last  Congress  came  to  the 
rescue,  and  for  once  acted  sensibly:  Lee 
and  Adams  were  recalled,  and  Franklin  was 
left  as  sole  plenipotentiary  in  Paris. 

With  other  Americans  Franklin's  rela 
tionship  was  of  a  pleasanter  sort.  To  the 
American  navy  and  privateers  Franklin  was 
the  American  government ;  and,  though  he 
was  often  annoyed  by  the  unreasonable  con 
duct  of  importunate  captains,  yet  he  also 
shared  in  the  glory  of  their  deeds.  John 
Paul  Jones  was  one  of  the  many  forced  to 
endure  Arthur  Lee's  impertinences,  and  had 
it  not  been  for  Franklin's  aid  and  friend 
ship  our  navy  would  have  lost  the  honor  of 
that  name.  At  one  time  Paul  Jones  was  in 
Paris  with  no  ship  to  command,  and  though 
he  tried  every  channel  to  obtain  a  vessel 


ENVOY   TO   FRANCE  127 

from  the  French  court,  was  always  put  off, 
At  last,  as  he  was  reading  a  French  transla 
tion  of  Poor  Kichard's  Almanac,  his  eye  was 
struck  by  this  sentence :  "  If  you  would 
have  your  business  done,  go  ;  if  not,  send." 
Without  delay  he  went  himself  to  Versailles, 
and  obtained  an  order  to  purchase  an  old 
ship  of  forty  guns.  This  good  vessel  he 
christened  Le  Bon  Homme  Eichard,  which 
is  French  for  Poor  Richard,  and  the  story 
of  how  she  beat  the  Serapis  need  not  here 
be  retold. 

Through  all  these  difficulties  in  France,  as 
before  in  England,  Franklin  found  consola 
tion  and  amusement  in  the  intellectual  society 
of  a  great  capital.  And  what  a  society  this 
was !  The  very  list  of  names  of  Franklin's 
friends  is  an  inspiration.  With  the  scientists 
of  the  day  he  continued  to  discuss  philo 
sophic  questions ;  and  with  the  great  ladies 
of  society  he  could  find  relaxation  from  his 
graver  cares.  Chess  still  absorbed  more  of 
his  time  than  his  conscience  approved,  and 
there  are  several  well  known  stories  of  him 
in  connection  with  that  game.  Once  when 


128  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

playing  with  the  old  Duchess  of  Bourbon,  the 
lady  happened  to  put  her  king  into  prize, 
and  the  Doctor  took  it.  "  Ah,"  says  she, 
"  we  do  not  take  kings  so."  "  We  do  in 
America,"  said  the  Doctor;  and  this  plea 
sant  joke  he  seems  to  have  repeated  several 
times  in  different  forms.  To  Madame  Brillon, 
a  wealthy  and  amiable  lady  of  the  neighbor 
hood,  he  wrote  a  number  of  those  clever 
sketches  which  might  well  find  a  place  in 
the  "  Spectator,"  -  —  such  as  The  Ephemera, 
The  Petition  of  the  Left  Hand,  The  Whistle, 
The  Dialogue  between  Franklin  and  the 
Gout,  and  others  almost  as  well  known. 

One  of  his  best  friends  was  Madame  Hel- 
vetius,  widow  of  the  celebrated  philosopher, 
and  it  was  to  her  he  wrote  his  famous  dream 
ending  with  the  words,  "  Let  us  avenge 
ourselves."  We  must  at  least  find  space 
for  Mrs.  Adams's  curious  account  of  that 
lady :  "  She  entered  the  room  with  a  care 
less,  jaunty  air ;  upon  seeing  ladies  who 
were  strangers  to  her,  she  bawled  out,  '  Ah ! 
mon  Dieu,  where  is  Franklin?  Why  did 
you  not  tell  me  there  were  ladies  here  ? ' 


ENVOY   TO  FRANCE  129 

You  must  suppose  her  speaking  all  this  in 
French.  '  How  I  look !  '  said  she,  taking 
hold  of  a  chemise  made  of  tiffany,  which 
she  had  on  over  a  blue  lute-string,  and 
which  looked  as  much  upon  the  decay  as  her 
beauty,  for  she  was  once  a  handsome  wo 
man  ;  her  hair  was  frizzled ;  over  it  she  had 
a  small  straw  hat,  with  a  dirty  gauze  half- 
handkerchief  round  it,  and  a  bit  of  dirtier 
gauze  than  ever  my  maid  wore  was  bowed  on 
behind.  She  had  a  black  gauze  scarf  thrown 
over  her  shoulders.  She  ran  out  of  the 
room ;  when  she  returned,  the  Doctor  en 
tered  at  one  door,  she  at  the  other  ;  upon 
which  she  ran  forward  to  him,  caught  him 
by  the  hand,  '  Helas  !  Franklin  ; '  then 
gave  him  a  double  kiss,  one  upon  each  cheek, 
and  another  upon  his  forehead.  When  we 
went  into  the  room  to  dine,  she  was  placed 
between  the  Doctor  and  Mr.  Adams.  She 
carried  the  chief  of  the  conversation  at  din 
ner,  frequently  locking  her  hand  into  the 
Doctor's,  and  sometimes  spreading  her  arms 
upon  the  backs  of  both  the  gentlemen's 
chairs,  then  throwing  her  arm  carelessly 
upon  the  Doctor's  neck." 


130  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Another  house  to  which  Franklin  was 
welcome  was  that  of  the  Countess  d'Houdetot 
celebrated  for  her  part  in  the  life  of  Rous 
seau.  It  was  at  her  chateau  that  Franklin 
had  to  undergo  the  ordeal  of  such  a  glorifi 
cation  as  must  have  tried  his  philosophic 
nerves  to  the  uttermost.  The  chronicler  of 
the  occasion  declares  that  "the  venerable 
sage,  with  his  gray  hair  flowing  down  upon 
his  shoulders,  his  staff  in  hand,  the  specta 
cles  of  wisdom  on  his  nose,  was  the  perfect 
picture  of  true  philosophy  and  virtue."  But 
the  "  sage  "  must  have  found  his  virtue  a 
burden  on  that  day.  He  was  escorted 
through  the  grounds ;  wine  was  poured  out 
freely ;  music  was  played,  and  the  company 
in  turn  celebrated  the  guest  in  stanzas  which 
were  none  the  less  fulsome  because  they  were 
true.  The  ceremony  closed  with  the  plant 
ing  of  a  Virginia  locust  by  the  Doctor. 

The  surrender  of  Burgoyne  in  1777  had 
brought  about  the  treaty  with  France ;  the 
surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown,  four 
years  later,  was  the  beginning  of  peace 
and  the  cause  of  the  treaty  with  England. 


ENVOY   TO  FRANCE  131 

What  effect  the  news  of  Cornwallis's  defeat 
had  in  England;  how  Lord  North,  the 
Prime  Minister,  received  the  message  "  as 
he  would  have  taken  a  ball  in  his  breast," 
walking  wildly  up  and  down  the  room,  toss 
ing  his  arms,  and  crying  out,  "  Oh  God ! 
it  is  all  over !  it  is  all  over !  "  —  all  this  is 
known  to  everybody. 

The  diplomacy  which  now  passed  be 
tween  the  belligerent  parties  is  a  most 
complicated  chapter  of  history.  Franklin, 
Jay,  and  Adams  were  appointed  by  Congress 
to  treat  with  England  concerning  peace, 
with  instructions  to  consult  the  French 
government  in  every  measure.  The  first 
difficulty  was  one  of  form.  England  was 
ready  to  sign  a  treaty  of  peace  and  ac 
knowledge  the  independence  of  the  colo 
nies  ;  but  the  envoy  sent  to  Paris  for  this 
purpose  was  empowered  to  treat  only  with 
commissioners  of  the  "  colonies  or  planta 
tions,"  and  Jay  and  Adams  felt  incensed 
that  the  United  States  did  not  receive  re 
cognition  by  name.  Franklin  regarded  the 
matter  as  a  mere  formality  and  was  eager 


132  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

to  push  on  the  proceedings ;  but  his  colleagues 
were  obdurate,  and  after  some  delay  Eng 
land  made  the  required  recognition.  Three 
important  points  had  then  to  be  settled: 

1.  Whether  the   Americans  should   be   al 
lowed  to  fish  on  the  New  Foundland  banks ; 

2.  Whether  the  western  boundary  should 
extend  to  the  Mississippi  River  L  3.  Whether 
the  United  States  government  should  reim 
burse  the  losses  of  the  Tories. 

Adams,  who  as  a  Bostonian  understood  the 
importance  of  the  first  measure,  insisted  stub 
bornly  that  England  should  cede  this  point, 
and  finally  won  the  day.  That  the  United 
States  were  not  confined  to  a  strip  of  land 
along  the  seacoast  was  chiefly  due  to  Jay. 
And  here  a  new  complication  came  in.  Jay 
had  from  the  first  suspected  that  France 
was  playing  a  double  game,  and  convincing 
evidence  of  duplicity  now  fell  into  his  hands. 
To  obtain  concessions  for  herself,  France 
was  secretly  encouraging  England  to  refuse 
the  American  claims  on  the  New  Foundland 
fishing  banks  and  on  the  territory  lying  be 
tween  the  AUeghanies  and  the  Mississippi. 


ENVOY  TO   FRANCE  133 

Jay  thereupon  insisted  that  the  American 
envoys  should  treat  secretly  with  England 
without  consulting  the  French  court,  and 
Adams  sided  with  him.  Franklin  was  at  first 
much  averse  to  this  mode  of  procedure,  both 
because  Congress  had  distinctly  commanded 
them  to  act  in  concert  with  Versailles,  and 
because  he  could  not  believe  in  the  treachery 
of  his  French  friends.  When,  however, 
Jay  laid  the  matter  clearly  before  him  he 
gave  up  the  point,  and  the  negotiations  pro 
ceeded.  England  acknowledged  the  Amer 
ican  right  to  the  western  territory,  but  was 
more  obstinate  in  regard  to  the  Tory  indemni 
fication.  Franklin  was  willing  to  grant  this  if 
England  in  return  would  cede  Canada  to  the 
American  union,  and  for  a  time  the  question 
was  debated  in  this  form.  Finally  a  com 
promise  was  adopted,  Congress  promising  to 
recommend  to  the  state  legislatures  "  to  re 
store  the  estates,  rights,  and  properties  of 
real  British  subjects,"  -  —  which  was  of  course 
a  concession  in  words  only,  as  Congress  had 
no  authority  to  enforce  such  a  recommenda 
tion.  The  preliminary  treaty  between  Eng- 


134  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

land  and  America  was  signed  November 
30,  1782,  and  Franklin  had  at  once  to  ap 
pease  the  wrath  of  the  French  government 
which  felt  it  had  been  duped.  With  con 
summate  skill  he  accomplished  this  task,  and 
all  the  vexing  questions  at  issue  were  settled 
by  the  signing,  on  September  3,  1783,  of 
separate  definitive  treaties  between  the  three 
hostile  powers. 

Franklin's  great  work  was  done.  He  had 
before  this  urged  Congress  to  release  him 
from  his  heavy  duties,  and  at  last  —  in  1785, 
after  he  had  assisted  in  making  treaties  with 
the  other  powers  of  Europe  —  his  resigna 
tion  was  accepted,  and  he  was  free  to  return 
home.  Thomas  Jefferson  came  over  to  Paris 
as  plenipotentiary  in  his  stead.  When  asked 
if  he  replaced  Dr.  Franklin,  Jefferson  used 
to  reply :  "  I  succeed.  No  one  can  replace 
him." 

Franklin  returned  to  Philadelphia  laden 
with  years  and  honors  ;  yet  still  his  country 
could  not  let  him  repose.  For  three  succes 
sive  years  he  was  elected  President  of  Penn 
sylvania  ;  but  the  labors  entailed  were  not 


ENVOY   TO   FRANCE  135 

severe,  and  the  old  man  found  time  for 
amusement  and  quiet  study.  We  have  a 
beautiful  picture  of  his  life  at  home  with  his 
daughter  and  her  family  in  one  of  his  letters 
of  the  time  :  "  The  companions  of  my  youth 
are  indeed  almost  all  departed;  but  I  find 
an  agreeable  society  among  their  children 
and  grandchildren.  I  have  public  business 
enough  to  preserve  me  from  ennui,  and 
private  amusement  besides  in  conversation, 
books,  my  garden,  and  cribbage.  Consider 
ing  our  well-furnished,  plentiful  market  as 
the  best  of  gardens,  I  am  turning  mine,  in 
the  midst  of  which  my  house  stands,  into 
grass  plots  and  gravel  walks,  with  trees  and 
flowering  shrubs.  Cards  we  sometimes  play 
here  in  long  winter  evenings ;  but  it  is  as 
they  play  at  chess,  —  not  for  money,  but  for 
honor,  or  the  pleasure  of  beating  one  another. 
This  will  not  be  quite  a  novelty  to  you,  as 
you  may  remember  we  played  together  in 
that  manner  during  the  winter  at  Passy.  I 
have  indeed  now  and  then  a  little  compunc 
tion  in  reflecting  that  I  spend  time  so  idly. 
But  another  reflection  comes  to  relieve  me, 


136  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

whispering :  c  You  know  that  the  soul  is  im 
mortal.  Why,  then,  should  you  be  such 
a  niggard  of  a  little  time,  when  you  have 
a  whole  eternity  before  you  ?  '  So,  being 
easily  convinced,  and,  like  other  reasonable 
creatures,  satisfied  with  a  small  reason  when 
it  is  in  favor  of  doing  what  I  have  a  mind 
to,  I  shuffle  the  cards  again,  and  begin  an 
other  game."  Yet  the  old  man  could  not 
but  feel  lonely  at  times  in  the  new  society 
growing  up  about  him.  He  says  patheti 
cally  in  another  letter :  "  I  seem  to  have 
intruded  myself  into  the  company  of  pos 
terity,  when  I  ought  to  have  been  abed  and 
asleep." 

In  1787  the  constitutional  convention 
met  in  Philadelphia,  and  it  was  a  fitting 
thing  that  the  statesman  and  philosopher 
should  live  to  aid  in  framing  laws  by  which 
his  country  is  still  governed.  He  was 
now  too  weak  to  stand  long,  so  that  his 
speeches  on  various  questions  had  to  be  read 
out  by  a  friend.  His  work  in  the  conven 
tion  was  altogether  subordinate  to  that  of 
Madison  and  one  or  two  other  leading  spir- 


ENVOY  TO  FRANCE  137 

its  ;  but  his  part  in  reconciling  various  fac 
tious  elements  in  the  convention  was  of  the 
greatest  importance.  When  at  last  the  dead 
lock  came  between  the  smaller  and  the  larger 
States  on  the  question  of  representation  in 
the  legislature,  it  was  Franklin  who  saved 
the  day  by  a  suggestion  which  led  to  the 
famous  compromise,  making  the  Senate  re 
present  the  individual  States,  while  the  lower 
house  is  proportioned  to  population.  Wash 
ington  presided  over  the  assembly  ;  and  we 
are  told  that  while  "  the  last  members  were 
signing,  Dr.  Franklin,  looking  towards  the 
president's  chair,  at  the  back  of  which  a 
rising  sun  happened  to  be  painted,  observed 
to  a  few  members  near  him  that  painters 
had  found  it  difficult  to  distinguish  in  their 
art  a  rising  from  a  setting  sun.  '  I  have,' 
said  he,  4  often  and  often  in  the  course  of 
the  session  and  the  vicissitudes  of  my  hopes 
and  fears  as  to  its  issue  looked  at  that  be 
hind  the  president  without  being  able  to  tell 
whether  it  was  rising  or  setting  ;  but  now  at 
length  I  have  the  happiness  to  know  that  it 
is  a  rising,  and  not  a  setting  sun.' ' 


138  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

It  was,  however,  the  setting  sun  for  Frank 
lin.  The  few  years  that  remained  to  him 
were  peaceful  and  noble ;  but  his  old  mala 
dies  increased  on  him,  until  at  the  last  he 
was  confined  to  his  bed.  Yet  through  it  all 
he  showed  the  same  untiring  energy.  He 
wrote  against  the  study  of  the  classics,  against 
the  abuse  of  the  liberty  of  the  press,  and 
from  his  very  deathbed  sent  out  a  stinging 
letter  against  slavery.  The  end  was  come  : 
at  eleven  o'clock  at  night,  April  17,  1790, 
he  passed  away.  Philadelphia  knew  that 
she  had  lost  her  most  distinguished  citizen, 
and  he  was  followed  to  the  grave  by  a  pro 
cession  including  all  that  was  honorable  in 
the  city. 

In  closing  this  brief  Life  of  a  great  and 
good  man  we  cannot  do  better  than  quote 
the  words  sent  to  him  by  America's  greatest 
citizen  :  "  If  to  be  venerated  for  benevolence, 
if  to  be  admired  for  talent,  if  to  be  esteemed 
for  patriotism,  if  to  be  beloved  for  philan 
thropy,  can  gratify  the  human  mind,  you 
must  have  the  pleasing  consolation  to  know 
that  you  have  not  lived  in  vain.  And  I  flat- 


ENVOY  TO  FRANCE  139 

ter  myself  that  it  will  not  be  ranked  among 
the  least  grateful  occurrences  of  your  life  to  be 
assured  that  so  long  as  I  retain  my  memory 
you  will  be  recollected  with  respect,  venera 
tion,  and  affection  by  your  sincere  friend." 
To  receive  such  praise  from  Washington  is 
sufficient  answer  to  all  the  petty  cavils  that 
have  been  raised  against  the  memory  of  Ben 
jamin  Franklin. 


14  LJAX 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH 


OWED 


LOAN  DEPT. 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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